


Black and Potter

by ecrouse



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Harry, Grey Harry, M/M, Manipulative Dumbledore, Master of Death Harry, Mentor Snape, Multi, Slytherins Being Slytherins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:46:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecrouse/pseuds/ecrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He awoke in Godric's Hollow just in time to hear Voldemort kill James and he watched, helpless, incorporeal, and frustrated as Lily Potter made her sacrifice all over again. When Death pulled him outside (through the wall, no less) he heard a crack and thundering footsteps as someone Apparated into the front garden and dashed upstairs. The noise woke his younger self, and the infant’s wails served as a horrible accompanyment to Snape’s broken sobbing.<br/>THAT, Death said, IS A DIFFERENT HARRY. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?<br/>He coughed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Harrison...Black, I suppose.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Godric's Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to J.K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett. These characters belong to them, and I make no profit off them.  
> Legend:  
> DEATH TALKING.  
>  _thoughts_  
>  _—Memories— ___  
> § _Parseltongue_ §, eventually.

He awoke in Godric's Hollow just in time to hear Voldemort kill his father and he watched, helpless, incorporeal, and frustrated beyond measure, as Lily Potter made her sacrifice all over again. As Death pulled him outside (through the wall, no less) he heard a _crack_ and thundering footsteps as someone Apparated into the front garden and dashed upstairs. The noise woke his younger self, and the infant’s wailing served as a horrible accompaniment to Snape’s broken sobbing.

THAT, Death said, IS A DIFFERENT HARRY. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

He coughed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Harrison…Black, I suppose.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything. They stood behind the house and Harrison’s shoes made no imprint in the wet grass. A rumble in the distance grew steadily louder and the sounds of Snape’s grief faltered, though little Harry continued to cry. There was a second _crack_ as the Potions Master Disapparated from the upstairs bedroom. And then a memory hit Harrison, quite suddenly, and he strode toward the side of the house.

“Oh! Sirius! Hagrid said that Sirius had leant him his motorbike, that day in the pub, it was _ages_ ago, and –”

Death silently followed Harrison around to the front. He waited, watching, as Reubus Hagrid arrived on the Knight Bus and lumbered inside on his mission to pick up little Harry. Sirius Black and his flying motorbike landed a few moments later and Harrison, eyes shining, called the other man’s name and tried to hug him. His arms had no more substance than mist and Sirius, noticing nothing, went right through Harrison as he went to follow Hagrid inside. Harrison staggered a bit and swallowed hard. Death’s voice sounded within his head.

DO YOU WANT A BODY?

“A – yes. I – how do I – ”

PRACTICE.

“Um, right. Practice.”

Hagrid and Sirius came out the front door, talking. Hagrid held a crying bundle in his arms. Sirius gave Hagrid his motorbike and watched as they disappeared into the distance. He looked like he was going to be sick. Once his godfather had Disapparated, Harrison turned toward Death.

“How long before I…?”

YEARS, LITTLE MASTER. POSSIBLY DECADES.

“But you’ll teach me?”

Death paused. RIDDLE IRKS ME. ONLY ONE OTHER WIZARD MISSED HIS APPOINTMENTS THIS THOROUGHLY, AND _THAT_ WAS LARGELY BY ACCIDENT.

“Right.”

They were quiet for another moment.

“There’s nothing I can do about Dumbledore putting me with the Dursleys, is there.” It wasn’t a question, so Death did not answer. Harrison looked into the hooded face, green eyes blazing.

“Take me to Little Winging,” He said, and then added, “Please.”

Death nodded, and they disappeared.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the responses! Updates will be strange. I intend to add more chapters between "Godric's Hollow" and "The Bookshop," then continue in roughly chronological order from there. We'll see how it goes.


	2. "Yer a wizard, Harry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little description and exposition for Genuka and PerSonNee.

Ten Years Later

They were on the train to London for Harry Potter’s first visit to Diagon Alley. Harrison felt a wave of nostalgia as Harry read his school list. He looked at Hagrid and wondered if Dumbledore had given him the pattern for his enormous yellow knitting project. He never had found out what it was.

It was their birthday. Harry was eleven and Harrison, so far as he could tell, was twenty seven. Ten years of life as an invisible and entirely insubstantial spectre had forced him to be patient. At first he had raged at his inability to interfer with the Dursleys treatment of Harry, but it did not take long for him to become bored with the useless haunting of his aunt and uncle’s house. He traveled Britain for a short while, but grew frustrated (again) with his inability to interact with anyone or anything save Death, whose visits were very rare.

The desire for a body soon became a singular, driving ambition which filled the decade between Voldemort’s disappearance and Harry’s arrival in Diagon Alley. Harrison often thought about Voldemort’s spirit, furious and alone in the forests of Albania, and laughed with rather grim amusement at the similarity of their predicaments.

* * *

Once, sometime around Harry’s third birthday, Death warned Harrison that corporeality would be permanent. He would not be able to shift back into a spectre. Harrison did not mind. He asked if he could chose his appearance, for he had realized that he must not be instantly recognizable if he were to remain inconspicuous. Death said that he could.

Then Harrison asked if Death could teach him Occlumency first, to protect his mind and his memories from Voldemort, Snape, and Dumbledore. What would be the point of spending years crafting a body if his plans went up in smoke the moment one of these men read his mind? Death agreed and, over the next several years, he helped Harrison build Occlumency walls strong enough and subtle enough to keep his secrets safe. It was during this time that Harrison finally learnt a measure of control over his emotions and his temper.

* * *

Because he got bored, Harrison did not see Harry grow into a small, skinny boy with knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes.He did not see that Harry liked his thin, lighting bolt shaped scar. When he was still quite small Harry asked his Aunt where it had come from. That night, as he lay in his cupboard, Harry strained to remember the car crash that killed his parents. He came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain in his forehead. 

Harrison did not see Harry open his eyes and stifle a cry when the burning pain did not go away. He did not see Harry clap his hands to the side of his head as pressure built in his forehead, desperate to make it stop. 

He was not there when Harry miraculously re-grew his hair overnight, or when he Apparated onto the roof of the school kitchens to escape his bullies. Harrison was not there because, he told himself, he knew what was going to happen and there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet.

Harrison did not follow Harry and the Dursleys to the zoo because he knew about the boa constrictor and the vanishing glass, and there was nothing he could do about Harry's underage magic. He did not see Harry get a mild concussion when he fell hard on the concrete floor of the reptile house, and he did not see Harry shaking in his cupboard when the Horcrux in his scar reacted to Harry's first use of Parseltongue.

Because he got bored, Harrison did not see Harry unwittingly force the tiny sliver of Voldemort's soul behind a thick wall of his own magic.* 

* * *

Harrison returned to Privet Drive in time for the kurfuffle over Harry’s first Hogwarts letter, and he was brought up short by Petunia’s fear that “they” were watching the house. She was right, wasn’t she?

The letter was from McGonagall. If she knew he had slept in the cupboard under the stairs, why hadn’t she done anything about it? McGonagall had been the only voice of protest when Dumbledore and Hagrid left his younger self to face the Dursleys with nothing but a blanket and a letter. Harrison had been sure that his Transfiguration professor would check on Harry, perhaps by pretending to be one of Mrs. Figg’s cats, but no luck. He supposed that Dumbledore, who he now knew received a twice annual report from Mrs. Figg, had told McGonagall not to worry.

Dumbledore. Harrison had not, in the end, forgiven the headmaster for failing to trust him. He replayed their encounter at King’s Cross over and over in his head, analyzing what Dumbledore had said and wondering at the things he had left out.

 _When I have a body,_ he told himself, _One of the first things I’ll do is get my hands on a Pensieve._

His enigmatic conversation with Dumbledore made him think about Hallows and Horcruxes, and about whether he regretted his decision to board the train. He often thought about Ron and Hermione as well, and about Ginny and Neville and everyone else who had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. What had happened to them? Had the world he knew continued without him or had it rewound with him, like a Muggle cassette tape, to the moment when James Potter died? Where was the bloodied, shivering Horcrux child now, if King’s Cross station had been both real and inside his head?

Death met these questions and many others with silence, as though he expected Harrison to find the answers himself. In these moments the anthropomorphic personification reminded him, rather horribly, of Dumbledore at his worst. Any goodwill which Harrison felt toward the headmaster at the end of his previous life had faded into apathetic disappointment. He understood better, now, why Dumbledore had made a chessboard of his life, but he would never thank him for it. He refused to focus on the ‘greater good’ as Dumbledore had done. He would not repeat the older wizard’s mistakes.

Harrison realized that this put him in a rather difficult position. He felt sure that his past could have been better than it was, but, once he had a body…how could he change this world for the better without meddling in Harry’s life the way Dumbledore had meddled in his? He knew he could not just meddle _differently,_ because he was not so arrogant as to think himself a better chessmaster than Dumbledore even with his limited knowledge of the future. These memories were his greatest asset, yet he knew they would do him no good if he started changing things right off the bat. In any case, he could do nothing but watch until he got himself a proper body.

* * *

July 31, 1991.

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

“Bless my soul,” whispered the old barman. “Harry Potter – what an honour.”

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.

“Welcome back, Mr Potter, welcome back.”

The crowd remained still and staring for a long moment, then crowded around the young boy. Harry looked confused and not a little uncomfortable, although Hagrid appeared not to notice. Harrison waited. He intended, with no small amount of trepidation, to use Harry’s first interaction with Quirrell to test whether Voldemort could sense his presence.

A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

Harrison held his breath. He moved behind Harry, then into him so that his form overlapped the boy’s body as much as possible. He crouched so that Quirrell seemed to meet both of their eyes.

“Professor Quirrell!” said Hagrid. “Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts.”

“P-P-Potter,” stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry’s hand, “c-can’t t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.”

Harrison stared. “ _What?_ ” he cried. Of course, nobody heard him.

Quirrell had shaken his hand? How on earth could Harry touch the professor without burning him? For one horrible moment, Harrison wondered if Lily’s protection had not taken hold. There must be an explanation. He followed Harry and Hagrid out the back door and into Diagon Alley, thinking. He knew Quirrell would try and fail to steal the Stone later that same day. Voldemort, he felt, was cunning enough to break in undetected, so it must have been Quirrell’s fault that the break-in made the _Daily Prophet_. Perhaps Quirrell was merely allied with Voldemort’s spirit, and did not yet have the Dark Lord sticking out the back of his head. He did not know.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * With apologies to Athy, who used a very similar idea in "Harry Potter and the Descent into Darkness." (Read that fic if you haven't already). It's a wonderful plot device, and I'm borrowing it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, dear Athy!


	3. Hogwarts

September 1, 1991

Harrison Black watched the first years file into the Great Hall and pursed his lips. Everyone looked so _young._ Hermione’s teeth hadn’t been that big, had they? Ron was taller than he remembered, with more freckles and a longer nose.

He was startled and rather amused to see Ron and Draco Malfoy roll their eyes simultaneously in response to Hermione’s comment on the ceiling, before their eyes met and they turned away, scowling at the shared reaction. Harry, staring up at the cloudy sky, missed the exchange entirely. Albus Dumbledore and the rest of the Hogwarts staff were also watching the line of first years. Dumbledore, with his deep purple robes, silvery beard and half-moon spectacles, was _alive_.

He was alive and twinkling and making good-natured remarks about pudding not ten feet from where Harrison stood. This man had (and had not yet) been Harrison’s mentor. His leader. The man who orchestrated both of their deaths to the best of his considerable ability. Harrison resented him, deeply, yet could not deny the flash of relief that Dumbledore was back at Hogwarts. He had spent years thinking about the headmaster, but actually _seeing_ him again in all his nonsensical glory was something else entirely. It seared the apathetic film off of his feelings and left all of the disappointment intact.

Harrison let his eyes travel down the high table. 

 _Good lord,_ he thought.  _Snape._

The Potions Master wore stiff black robes and a blank expression as he watched the Sorting Hat finish its song. Harrison lost count of the number of times this man had saved his life and, at the same time, made living it immensely unpleasant. Harrison smiled. Perhaps he would return the favor. He looked over the house tables next, and his throat tightened when he saw Fred Weasley happily chatting away with Angelina Johnson. He wanted to save that life, too.

He pulled his attention back to the Hat and watched the rest of the Sorting, which went exactly as he remembered it, as did the rest of the welcome feast. Before he knew it Percy Weasley stood up to lead the newest Gryffindors to the dormitories.

* * *

Harry lay back on his four-poster bed and giggled as he heard Ron try and fail to stop Scabbers from crawling into bed with him. He ran a hand over the covers, then stretched, luxuriating in the new space. He could get used to this. It was nothing like his cupboard. Harry stared at the wooden underside of the canopy until he fell asleep. Every inch was covered in names, presumably those belonging to all the boys who had stayed in this bed. A big one in the lower right corner read “S. O. BLACK.”

Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was his destiny. Harry told the turban he didn’t want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully. There was a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.

            He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke the next day, he didn’t remember the dream at all.

* * *

Harrison decided there would be little point in following Harry to class.  He knew that, for the next several weeks, Harry and Ron would face nothing more dangerous than practice Bludgers. The thought of Quiddich made him humm happily under his breath; he could not wait until he was solid enough to fly, and wished that his spectral form did not obey gravity quite so readily. By this time he could, at least, make himself solid enough to hold and move books, and so he decided to spend his time in the Hogwarts library. 

His research led him to _Mindscapes for the Muddled_ by C. Xavier, which described a meditative process for accessing and organizing one’s consciousness. Harrison spent three weeks reading and meditating in an empty classroom. Over the first few days he wondered, angrily, why Snape never saw fit to teach him _how_ to clear his mind. Xavier's process needed as much patience and concentration as the instructions Death had given him for envisioning a proper body. Two weeks passed before Harrison found the white noise behind his conscious thoughts. It took another week to call up and set aside his confusing swirl of memories, fears, and plans for the upcoming war. At the end of the fourth week, Harrison finally reached the calm oblivion which, according to _Mindscapes for the Muddled_ , marked the first step in calming one’s mind. He floated there, enjoying a measure of peace for the first time in years.

Something intangible snapped, quite suddenly, and a vertigo–like lurch sent his mind hurtling deeper into itself.

Harrison landed flat on his back and lay still, completely winded. After a long moment of gasping and coughing his diaphram relaxed, he caught his breath, got to his feet, and looked around.

It was a fairly large room with a high, sloping ceiling. Sunlight streamed through four windows in the right-hand wall. Wooden shelves filled with all kinds of broken, misshapen, or well-formed pottery lined the other three walls as well as the space beneath the windows. A large wooden table covered in bags of raw clay took up the middle of the room. More clay and broken crockery lay scattered across the floor. At the end of the table nearest Harrison was a potter’s wheel.

He felt heat at his back, turned around, and saw a rough-looking kiln attached to the back wall.

 _A studio._ He thought wryly. _I guess that makes sense, even if I’m not quite a Potter anymore._ Smiling, he rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and got to work.

Harrison spent most of October understanding and organizing his mindscape. The misshapen pots turned out to be distorted memories, and the broken ones were things he would have forgotten entirely, given time. The bags of raw clay were new memories. The well-formed pots held the memories he had held onto most fiercely during the decade before Harry turned eleven. His friends’ warmth. His godfather's barking laugh. Dumbledore’s flawed plan for the Elder Wand. The location of each Horcrux. The tragic love story of Severus Snape and Lily Potter. He fixed what he could, and slowly moved all the pieces of his past life until they filled the wall opposite the windows.

As he worked, Harrison was made to relive the memories in each pot or pot shard. Each new detail made his quest to improve Harry Potter’s life seem that much more impossible. He saw how small moments, like Malfoy’s insult to Buckbeak in third year, set in motion the events that led up to Sirius’s escape. He realized, more clearly than ever before, that this foreknowledge gave him a priceless edge over….Voldemort? Over Dumbledore? Over his own younger self?

Harrison sighed and rubbed his hands over his face.

_I really need a body._

* * *

The first time Harry brought Ron to meet Hagrid, they were nearly bowled over by an enormous and very excitable black boarhound.

      “Make yerselves at home,” said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Ron yelped. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

      “This is Ron,” Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes on to a plate.

      “Another Weasley, eh?” said Hagrid, glancing at Ron’s freckles. “How’s yer brother Charlie? I liked him a lot – great with animals.”

      “Yeah, Charlie’s fine. Blimey, Hagrid,” Ron said, still trying to fend off Fang, “He’s _huge_ –”

      “Ah don’ worry about Fang,” said Hagrid, who reached over and dragged the dog off Ron. “Dogs are sops, they are…even the biggest Cerebus goes straight off ter sleep if yer play him a bit o’ music – ”

      Hagrid suddenly looked horrified.

      “I shouldn’ta told yeh that!” he blurted out. “Forget I said that!”

      Harry and Ron looked at each other and shrugged. They spent the next few minutes telling Hagrid all about their first lessons, including the disastrous first Potions lesson, where Harry hadn't been able to answer any of Professor Snape’s questions.

      Hagrid and Ron agreed that Harry shouldn’t worry about it too much because Snape was notoriously bad-tempered.

      “But he seemed to really _hate_ me.”

      “Rubbish!” said Hagrid. “Why should he?”

      Yet Harry couldn’t help thinking that Hagrid didn’t quite meet his eyes when he said that.

      Ron went to pick up the tea cosy and picked up Hagrid’s copy of the _Daily Prophet_ instead, which had been lying underneath it. One of the headlines had caught his eye.

      “Look at this, mate. The Gringotts thing. I told you about it on the train, remember?”

      “Oh, yeah.”

      The headline read _GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST_ and, to Harry’s surprise, it said that the vault in question had been emptied on the same day as the attempted robbery. His birthday, July 31 st.

      Harry grinned.

      “Ron, get this – me and Hagrid were at Gringotts the same day! Weren’t we, Hagrid?” Hagrid grunted. This time he definitely didn’t meet Harry’s eyes. Harry kept going. “How cool would it’ve been if the break-in’d been happening while we were there?”

      Ron grinned back. “Wicked.”

“Er – Ron, what kind o’ work is Charlie doing? Yer never said.” Harry let Hagrid change the subject. He settled back in his chair and re-read the article, thinking about Hagrid’s “secret Hogwart’s business” and the grubby little package in vault seven hundred and thirteen. That vault was certainly empty once they’d left.

      Harry didn’t believe in coincidences.


	4. Monsters

CRASH.

Harrison jumped. He had been sitting cross-legged in an empty classroom on the second floor, working to solidify his body.

 _What the bloody hell was that?_ It sounded like something heavy and metallic had fallen over somewhere on the floor above.

 _And that,_ he thought after a moment, _is exactly what happened. Hah! We’ll find Fluffy soon._

He settled back down, content that everything was happening as expected. He was wrong.

* * *

            _This,_ Harry thought, _was not part of the plan._ Damn Malfoy for setting them up, and damn Ron for being a clumsy arse. Filch had spooked his gangly friend, who tripped over his own feet and fell headlong into a suit of armour. The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

            “RUN!” Harry yelled and the two of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following – they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor and another, Harry in the lead without any idea where they were or where they were going. They came out near the Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

            “I think we’ve lost him,” Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead.

“We’ve got – to get back - to Gryffindor tower,” Ron gasped, “quickly as possible.”

Harry nodded. “Malfoy tricked us. He was never going to duel us – Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off.” He laughed weakly. “He’s as bad as Dudley, but smarter.”

            “Who?”

            “Muggle cousin I live with. Duddy Dursley. Awful bloke.”

            Ron made a face.

            They hadn’t gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

            It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and cackled.

            “Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, Naughty,” he sang, “you’ll get caughty.”

            “Not if you don’t give us away, Peeves, please.”

            “Should tell Filch, I should,” said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. “It’s for your own good, you know.”

            “Get out of the way,” snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves – this was a big mistake.

            “STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed. “STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!”

They ran for it. At the end of the corridor they slammed into a door, but it was locked.

            “This is it!" Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door. “We’re done for! This is the end!”

            They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves’ shouts.

            “Oh, move over,” Harry snarled, getting a hold on his panic. He tapped the lock and whispered “ _Alohomora!_ ”

It was one of the first things he’d looked up in the Hogwarts library. He was a wizard, and he refused to let anybody shut him in a cupboard.

The lock clicked and the door swung open – they piled through it, shut it quickly and pressed their ears against it, listening. Peeves obviously decided that teasing Filch was more fun, because he didn’t give them away. Ron wimpered and tugged on the sleeve of Harry’s dressing-gown.

            “What?”

            Harry turned around – and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he’d walked into a nightmare – this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.

They weren’t in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

            They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog which filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. (…) It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren’t already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise. A low, rumbling growl began filling the corridor.

            Ron tried to scream. Harry clapped a hand over his mouth and started to hum “God Save the Queen.”

            It was a faltering, out-of-tune “God Save the Queen,” but from the first note the beast’s eyes began to droop. Harry hardly drew breath. Slowly, the dog’s growls ceased – it tottered on its paws and fell to its knees, then it slumped to the ground, fast asleep.

            Harry kept humming as he groped for the doorknob – between Filch and death, he’d take Filch.

            They fell backwards – Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch was nowhere to be seen, and they didn’t stop running until they reached the Gryffindor common room.

            “What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” Ron said, as they collapsed into two of the squashy armchairs by the fire. “If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

Harry chuckled. Ron caught his eye and giggled, which made Harry laugh, which made Ron laugh harder, until their composure dissolved completely in a chain reaction fueled by relief and adrenaline.

            “Harry," Ron said, as their laughter began to fade, "how’d you know to do that?”

            “Do what?”

            “Sing it to sleep, of course.”

            “That’s what Hagrid said about big dogs, like kere..kareb…”

            Ron’s eyes were huge in the firelight. “Cerebus! That’s right! What are they using it for, d’you reckon?”

            “Huh?”

            “Cerebus in stories are always guarding _something_.”

            Harry sat up excitedly, and was about to tell Ron his theory about Gringotts and the package from vault seven hundred and thirteen, but a girl's voice interrupted him.

            “A _Cerebus?_ They’re very rare – Where on earth have you been?” Hermione Granger, the first year girl who showed everyone up in class, stood at the bottom of the stairs to the girls’ dormitory. She gestured at their disheveled pajamas and sweaty faces.

            Harry and Ron looked at each other, then back at her.

            “Er…”

            “You tried to get into the third floor corridor, didn’t you?” She glared at them. **“** A Cerebus. _Honestly._ I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. You could have been killed – or worse, expelled.”

Ron stared as she flounced back upstairs.

“That girl’s got to re-think her priorities.”

Harry snorted.

“She’s right, though. We shouldn’t have let Malfoy get to us in the first place.”

“He’s Slytherin,” Ron shrugged, “they’re all sneaky gits.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably. At the Dursleys, being sneaky often meant not being hungry, and it was Ron’s definite lack of sneakiness which almost got them caught just now. Maybe the Sorting Hat had been right after all.

 _They can’t be all that bad,_ he thought. _It’s just Malfoy_.

* * *

October 31, 1991

The Hallowe’en decorations were just as good as Harrison remembered. He felt a twinge of jealousy as he watched Ron stuff his face with treacle tart.

            _I miss food._

Then, the moment he had been waiting for: Quirrell burst into the Great Hall, ran to the headmaster, and sent everyone into a panic about the troll in the dungeons. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Dumbledore’s wand to bring silence.

            “Prefects,” he rumbled, “lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

Harrison followed Percy and the rest of Gryffindor house outside and up the stairs. A crowd of confused Hufflepuffs barrelled through him and down the corridor that led to the kitchens.

Harry suddenly grabbed Ron’s arm.

            “I’ve just thought – the Slytherins.”

            "Huh?"

  Harrison was as baffled as Ron.

            “Their common room is in the dungeons! They’re heading right for it!”

            “Harry, what – _ooph!_ ” Someone’s shoulder hit Ron in the chest as Harry dragged him down the stairs, against the crowd “– but how do you _know_ where the – ”

            “No idea! I just do! Come _on,_ Ron!”

* * *

Dumbledore revived Quirrell as soon as the prefects began herding their charges out of the hall. Neither Harry, Ron, nor Harrison saw the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher standing at the entrance to the Great Hall as they ran past him toward the dungeons.

 _Harry…Potter,_ said the high, cold voice in Quirrell’s head. _Concerned for Ssslytherins?_

* * *

Snape's sudden appearance distracted Harry and Ron, who hid behind a stone griffin. They made to follow the hook-nosed professor once they realized he was headed for the third floor. Then Ron put out a hand.

“Can you hear something?”

They stopped. Harrison heard grunting, heavy footfalls, then a high, petrified scream from the girls’ toilets around the corner. The boys looked at each other, horrified.

           "Oh, no."

            “ _Hermione!_ ” they said together.

            “We’ve got to help, come on!” said Ron. He grabbed Harry and pulled him toward the toilets.

            “Hold on,” Harry turned quickly back around and put his hands around his mouth. “SNAPE!” he yelled, then caught up with Ron. The red head looked more horrified than ever.

            “What was _that_ for?” he said as they turned the corner.

            “He’s still a teacher, Ron, and we don’t know _anything_ about bloody trolls!”

Harrison laughed as he jogged behind the two boys. _This_   _is different_. _He’s a lot cleverer than I was._

* * *

When they reached the toilets, Hermione was huddled against the opposite wall, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll was advancing on her, knocking sinks off the walls as it went.

            “Confuse it!” Harry said desperately to Ron, and seizing a tap he threw it as hard as he could against the wall. It shattered a mirror and shards of glass scattered across the floor.

The troll stopped a few feet from Hermione. It lumbered around, blinking stupidly, to see what had made the noise. It hesitated, then made for Harry instead, lifting its club as it went.

            “Oy, pea-brain!” yelled Ron from the other side of the chamber, and he threw a metal pipe at it. He missed and drew his wand, trying to think of a spell. Any spell. The troll paused again, turning its ugly snout towards Ron instead, giving Harry time to run around it.

            “Come on, run, _run_!" Harry yelled at Hermione, trying to pull her towards the door, but she couldn’t move, she was still pressed against the wall, her mouth open in terror.

“STUPIFY!” Professor Snape’s deep baritone had never been so welcome. There was a flash of red light and the troll swayed, shook its head, and roared. A line of thick saliva few from its mouth and hit the front of Ron’s robes. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all flinched. Snape did not even blink.

            Professor McGonagall burst past Snape, took a split-second glance around the room and threw out an arm to shield Ron from the angry troll.

            “On my count, Severus! Three, two, one…"

             "STUPIFY!” Twin jets of red light hit the troll square in the face. It started to keel over backward, right at Harry and Hermione.

            “ _Potter!_ ” – “RUN, HERMIONE!” Professor Snape and Harry yelled at the same moment. The girl shrieked and tried to cover her head, but Harry dragged her out of the troll’s path, toward the teachers.

WHAM. 

The troll shattered the tiles where Hermione had crouched a second before. There was a wheezing groan as air rushed out of the troll's lungs, and then it lay still, unconscious. Water gushed from broken plumbing all around them.

             “Oh! Good heavens.” Everyone looked at Professor Quirrell, who had just arrived. He sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart. Snape bent over the troll. Professor McGonagall was looking at Ron and Harry. Harry had never seen her look so angry. Her lips were white. Hopes of winning fifty points for Gryffindor faded quickly from Harry’s mind.

            “What in Merlin’s name were you thinking?” said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Why aren’t you in your dormitory?”

Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look. Harry looked at the floor. He wished Ron would put his wand down.

Then a small voice came out of the shadows.

             “Please, Professor McGonagall – they were looking for me.”

* * *

            Harrison smiled at Harry and Ron’s incredulous faces as Hermione lied to keep them out of trouble. The professors clearly weren’t fooled, judging by the look Snape gave McGonagall, but the Potions Master didn’t question her judgement.

            _Five points,_ he thought on the way back to the library, _She’s as easy on the Gryffindors as he is on the Slytherins. I don't know if I ever noticed that before._

He couldn’t wait for Harry’s first game of Quiddich.


	5. Defense Against the Dark Arts

           “Fess up, Harry.”

Harry looked up from his Potions homework. He was sitting in the library. Ron slid into the seat opposite him, a small frown on his face.

           “What?”

           “I thought we were mates.”

           “We are,” Harry said, confused and a little uncertain. _  
_

“Well…did you go looking for the Slytherin’s common room? Without me?”

           “No, why?”

           “Why d’you think it’s in the dungeons, then?”

           “There’s always Slytherins going down there after we eat, I – ”

           “That’s not what you said before! You said you had _no idea_ – ”

           “What does it matter, Ron?” said Harry, getting cross. Ron was right, he didn’t know why he’d been so certain the Slytherins slept in the dungeons. It had come to him with a flash of urgency that he’d been unable to explain, even to himself. It unnerved him.

Hermione was on her way out of the library with several books cradled in her arms and her school bag over one shoulder. She stopped at their table and tucked a bit of unruly hair behind one ear.

            “Hi, Harry; hi, Ron”

           “’Lo, Hermione.” said Ron.

           “You ought to come with me, or you’ll be late for Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Harry hurridly packed his things. Hermione led the way out of the library, chattering about the upcoming class.

           “Sorry, mate.” Harry said quietly to Ron, so Hermione wouldn’t hear.

           “Yeah, all right.”

* * *

The desks and chairs were precariously (and, presumably, magically) stacked along the walls of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. The first year students stood in a wide circle around a cotton training dummy, which was on fire.

            “N-not quite, Mr F-finnigan,” said Professor Quirrell, who was supervising the class from the small balcony that led to his office. A small jet of water shot from his wand, arched over the ring of students, and put out the fire. “Ms B-brown, you next.” Lavender Brown pointed her wand at the dummy.

            “ _Verdi…verdimilus!_ ” she cried. One green spark shot from her wand and fizzled out halfway between her and her target.

            “Again, m-more slowly; _ver-di-mil-li-ous._ ” said Professor Quirrell.

Lavender took a deep breath. “ _Verdimillious!_ ”

This time she produced a shower of sparks; most fizzled out too quickly, but a few reached the dummy and left small marks on its left arm.

            “Good. Mr P-potter!”

Harry licked his lips, breathed in, and focused on his pronunciation.

            “ _Verdimillious!_ ” A dozen green sparks flew at the dummy, hit its torso, and left a splotchy burn mark. The dummy swayed slightly.

            “Very well d-done, P-p-potter. One p-point for Gryffindor. W-w-weasley!”

Ron was on Harry’s left. He hit the dummy’s leg on the second try. They continued around the circle and, once everyone had tried casting the spell, Professor Quirrell shrunk the dummy to half its original size and instructed them to have another go.

As he waited his turn, Harry scratched his nose and wondered if Hagrid would like to have tea next Tuesday. It had been interesting, last time, apart from the rock cakes. The dummy caught fire, again, and he looked up to watch the next jet of water. His eyes met Professor Quirrell’s.

* * *

_\- a small, cluttered room and the sense of heat – Weasley and the gamekeeper at a wooden table –“Dogs are easy…straight off ter sleep…bit o’ music”  – the THUD of three huge, sleeping canine heads hiting a stone floor and a wooden trapdoor –_

The water hit the smoldering dummy with a soft _pht_ ; Potter blinked and turned back to the circle, cutting off the stream of images. Quirrell called on the next student without pause.

            _Interesting._

The Dark Lord shifted in the dark space behind Quirrell’s conscious mind. Potter had seen Hagrid’s beast. Not only seen it, but calmed it, _and_ managed to escape with no one the wiser. Quick-witted, then.

The Hallowe’en incident showed he was brave, too, as befitted a Gryffindor, though not as reckless as his freckled shadow. Once the wrecked bathroom had been cleared of students, Snape had told McGonagall and his servant that Potter called for help before rushing after the troll.

He had yet to hear any comment on Potter’s magical aptitude, but the boy showed promise, at least in his servant’s class. Today he and Granger were the only ones to hit the target on the first try, and Granger did noticibly less damage.

And now the boy had (unwittingly) provided a valuable kernel of information; the first obstacle to the Stone. The Dark Lord had, of course, already known how to subdue a Cerebus, but it helped to be prepared. His servant had been too slow to reach the third floor on Hallowe’en, even with the distraction.

 _Useless man_.

His displeasure bled through to Quirrell’s mind. The man twitched and stuttered even more.

* * *

Harry rubbed his forehead as he, Ron, and Hermione left Defense Against the Dark Arts. He _really_ disliked headaches. The only thing that got rid of them was a potion, and he was pants at Potions. Why wasn’t there an Aspirin Charm? Perhaps he’d invent one.

            “Hermione, what’s Latin for aspirin?”

Hermione blinked.

            “Aspirin’s a brand, not a…a _thing_ , so there wouldn’t be a word for it. Why?”

            “What’s aspirin?” asked Ron before Harry could speak.

            “A Muggle drug that dulls pain. The active ingredient is in willow bark, actually, which makes it very ironic that the Whomping Willow – ”

            “The _what?_ ” said Harry.

            “The tree a little ways off from Hagrid’s hut, it – ”

            “ _Hermione_ ,” Ron whined, and she glared at him. “Harry, why’d you want a Muggle thing in Latin?” Harry shrugged.

            “Most spells sound like they’re in Latin, or something, and – ”

            “Oh, but they’re _not!_ ” Hermione looked scandelized.

Ron frowned. “Aren’t they? Charlie said – ”

            “No, they most definitely aren’t. _Verdimillious_ sounds almost French, but – ”

Hermione then gave them a lesson on the awkward resemblance between spell incantations and words from various Romance languages which lasted well into lunch. Ron wasn’t very interested, but Harry was fascinated. He told Hermione his plan for a headache charm. They brainstormed incantation ideas and, amid a fit of giggles, chose _T_ _étesur_.

            “ _T_ _étesur_!” Hermione gasped, laughing. “Apply directly to the forehead! _T_ _étesur_! Apply directly to the forehead! _T_ _étesur_! –”

            “ _Please,_ no! Hermione…ahaha…”

Ron shook his head at them and poured gravy over his mashed potatos.

            “Ah, _Muggles_ ,” Harry said, once he caught his breath.

Hermione’s smile faded.

            “Why did you say it like that? You grow up with Muggles, didn’t you?”

           “Yes.” Harry’s face went blank. He looked down and started buttering a piece of bread.

           “My dad loves Muggles,” said Ron. “He works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office at the Ministry, and he’s always bringing rubbish home with him. Last weak it was a broken toastie – ”

           “Toaster,” said Hermione.

           “Right, toaster, and someone'd cursed it to bite when you stuck its tail in the wall holes –”

Harry snorted at exactly the wrong moment, got pumpkin juice up his sinuses, and started coughing. Ron slapped him on the back and had another forkful of potato.

            “’S aw’ight 'Arry,” he said, then swallowed. “Have some water.”

Hermione turned her face into her hand and sighed.

* * *

Harrison stood facing the wall of shelves in his mindscape. The windows behind him let in a patch of sunlight (regardless of the weather outside his mind) which covered the bottom two shelves and a good deal of floor. Tiny flecks of clay dust caught the light, making it seem almost tangible. Harrison paid it no mind.

He was staring at a pot. Several pots, actually. Well-formed ones and one or two broken ones, all covered in a blue glaze that was slightly irridescent.

Harrison had been spinning Harry’s troll adventure into a squat, intentionally lumpy vase when the blue pots caught his eye, forcefully, as though they were themselves the eyes of someone who wanted his attention. He had shaken his head and returned to the wheel, but could not shake the feeling that these blue pots _wanted his attention_.

So he turned off the wheel and stood up.

Pots. Eyes. Blue pots. Slightly shiny blue pots. Shiny blue _eyes?_ Ron had ( _has. This Ron is still Ron._ ) blue eyes. So do most of the Weasleys. Malfoy didn’t ( _doesn’t, Harrison, come on._ ), his are grey. Like his father. Harrison picked up the nearest shard of blue pot.

_\- Dumbledore sitting in the Defense Against the Dark Arts office – “Who’d have thought it? That brings her total of real predictions up to two. I should –”_

The shard fell through his fingers and _tinked_ on the floor. Dumbledore. Of course. Dumbledore has blue eyes.

More importantly, the headmaster had mentioned Trelawney’s prediction, _the_ prediction, in his third year. Sure, he knew Dumbledore had thought thirteen was too young to be told about it, but why hadn’t Harrison at least asked? He was a curious lad. Sometimes too curious, and yet...

He bent to get the shard off the floor, replaced it on the shelf, and touched a big one beside it.

 _\- “The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed” – “…in saving Pettigrew’s life…” – “I knew your father very well, both at Hogwarts and later, Harry. He would have saved Pettigrew too, I am sure of it.” Harry looked up at him._ Dumbledore wouldn’t laugh…he could tell Dumbledore... – ”

Harrison drew away. He’d heard the headmaster speak, in third person, without moving his lips.

            _It wasn’t like that_ , he thought _, it was me; I was debating whether to tell him about seeing my ‘dad’ cast the Patronus. That was me, thinking. Wasn’t it?_

He touched the shard again, replaying the memory. Either Dumbledore routinely thought in third person and thirteen year old Harry ( _Harrison. My name is Harrison_ ) spontaneously used Legilimency on a master Occlumens, or…or Dumbledore was thinking for him.

Harrison shook his head, walked back to the potter’s wheel, and sat down. In the memory he had looked at Dumbledore, and the headmaster planted a suggestion. Just…like that, in the middle of conversation. How often had that _happened?_ It couldn’t possibly be legal, either, and…and…

The conversation was about time travel, saving lives, and his father. Why, _why_ hadn’t Harrison asked if Dumbledore had used a Time Turner back in 1981 to try and save his parents’ lives? Two teenagers saved Sirius and Buckbeak. Why not Lily and James Potter?

Sirius, he realized, shouldn’t have needed saving in the first place. Dumbledore cast the Fideleus over the house in Godric’s Hollow; he knew exactly who the Secret Keeper was, as Lily and James could not have changed Secret Keepers without his help. Did Sirius get a trial? Was the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot incapable of asking for one? Did he  _forget_? For  _twelve years_?

He jumped up and went through the blue pots one by one. Each memory or fragment of memory involved twinkling blue eyes and varying types of compulsion magic. With every pot his anger burnt a little hotter, and he resolved to never accept tea, lemon drops, or anything else from _dear_ Professor Dumbledore.

Compulsions counted as Dark magic; they had to. Using someone’s own mind to control their actions was definitely Dark. Bit hypocritical for the ultimate Light wizard, but, then again, Dumbledore had shared a lot with Grindlewald ( _including saliva? Focus, Harrison._ ) during his youth. It didn’t matter how guilty one felt after doing something they knew was wrong, if they went ahead and did it anyway.

Harrison was suddenly very, very glad that Death himself gave him Occlumency lessons. This time, he would be able to defend himself. The ultimate defense against a Dark Art he hadn't seen coming.

In the midst of his fuming, Harrison decided that he loved his mindscape. It was better (and more portable) than any Pensieve.


	6. Gryffindor vs. Slytherin

Harry adored flying, and he enjoyed the practice sessions with Oliver Wood, but the thought of actually playing Quiddich in front of a thousand people made his stomach roll. The game was set for the last Saturday of November.

In the weeks leading up to the game he spent every spare moment in the library with Hermione, thinking up worst case scenarios and researching potentially useful spells. It was an ambitious project which took them well outside the normal first year curriculum.

What if it rained, or snowed, and he couldn’t see? They learned to make his glasses water resistant with _Impervius_. Hermione already knew _Occulus Reparo,_ in case the glasses broke, but what if they fell off entirely? She found the Sticking Charm in an old copy of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three_. What if he got a head wound, and the blood got in his eyes? _Episkey_ should stem the bleeding. What if a Bludger knocked him off his broom? _Arresto Momentum_ ought to slow him down.

Harry was very glad to have befriended Hermione. He took twice as long as her to finish his homework, so she spent that time researching the spells they wanted to learn. She relished the challenge of finding and mastering spells above their year and, whereas her logical mind sometimes had trouble working a spell, Harry had an almost instinctual connection to his magic. He always knew how to make them work, though he thought his spells weren’t very strong. They found he also had a knack for teaching, so he coached her, and afterward she proofread his homework. They made a good team.

Ron thought they were both mad. He kept reassuring them that Quiddich wasn’t that dangerous, really, but neither Harry nor Hermione had even seen a match before, much less played in one, and they agreed that Harry couldn’t take any chances. Ron gave up after two weeks and settled for rolling his eyes. He spent a lot of time playing chess (which he was very good at) and Exploding Snap  (which he was reasonably good at) with Seamus or Dean.

Harry and Hermione were happy to let him go. They learned the hard way that Ron couldn’t spend an hour in the library without whining about boredom, hunger, or both.

The first time Malfoy saw them practicing together, he claimed loudly that they’d need more than a few spells to help Gryffindor win. The second time he saw them, he made kissing noises and taunted Harry for having a girlfriend. The third time, he made a rude remark involving Hermione’s teeth, rodents, and Harry’s low standards.

Harry snapped and used the Sticking Charm to glue Malfoy’s lips together.

Malfoy ran to Madam Pomfrey, who got him unstuck, and to Professor Snape, who told Professor McGonagall, who took ten points from Gryffindor and told Harry to watch his temper. Malfoy had the gall to be smug about it, but he also stopped bothering them in the library.

* * *

Lea Jordan’s voice echoed over the pitch.

            “Slytherin in possession – Flint with the Quaffle – passes Spinnet – Passes Bell –”

Harrison ignored the Chasers and cheering Slytherin spectators. He was the only one, so far, who noticed that the Gryffindor Seeker’s broom was trying to buck him off.

            “– hit hard in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose – only joking, Professor – Slytherin score – oh, no – Wood in possession – Passes to Bell – Passes to…Potter! I mean, Professor! Look! Something’s wrong with Potter!”

            The whole crowd gasped as the Nimbus Two Thousand gave a wild jerk and swung Harry off. The boy was now dangling from the broom, holding on with only one hand.

            _Come on, Hermione!_ Harrison thought. Any moment now, she would bang into Quirrell and set Snape on fire.

            Fred and George circled several feet under Harry, having tried and failed to pull him onto one of their brooms. A Bludger came whistling toward the Seeker and George batted it toward the Gryffindor goal posts, where Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint was happily taking advantage of the distraction by scoring as many points as he could.

            Katie Bell tried to sneak up on Harry’s broom from above, to steady it or to get to Harry, but it swooped downward, away from her. Harry managed to grab it with the other hand and swing one leg over the handle. The crowd cheered.

            _Where’s Hermione?_

The broom shot forward. Harry gripped the broom like a sloth, but he was upside-down and could not get his feet on the foot rests. The broom sped across the pitch, gathering speed, then stopped, very suddenly, sixty feet from the ground. Harry’s grip broke and he flew forward, hurtling end over end through air. Harrison’s stomach dropped and he yelled, as did most of the audience.

            _“Arresto Momentum! – ARRESTO MOMENTUM! – urk –”_

The spell came, not from Madam Hooch, but from Harry himself. With the first attempt he stopped spinning, and with the second he slowed down dramatically, but he lost his concentration about twelve feet from the ground and dropped with an audible _thud_. Harrison goggled at his younger self. Over the noise of the crowd he heard Hagrid’s voice yelling Harry’s name.

Harry rolled onto his hands and knees, one hand on his throat, retching. A spray of blood and several small objects hit the sand in front of him. The hand on his throat whipped out to grab one of the objects as his teammates landed and ran toward him.

            PHREEEEET! "Out of the way, _get out of the way!_ ” Madam Hooch pushed past the Gryffindor team, blowing her whistle. She knelt down beside Harry, talking quietly. Harrison saw the boy nod and open his hand, offering its contents to Hooch.

            “Merlin’s _balls_ , HE’S GOT THE SNITCH! – Sorry, Professor, but it’s perfectly reasonable because GRYFFINDOR WINS! A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY POINTS TO SIXTY! – Don’t know what happened there, but still an awesome debut performance for the Gryffindor Seeker – Take that, Flintface – ”

            Lea’s voice faded as Harrison went with Madam Hooch and a gaggle of well wishers, including Ron and Hermione, who cheered as they escorted Harry to the hospital wing.

* * *

Harry walked away from the match with a large assortment of bruises and four broken teeth from where he’d nearly swallowed the Snitch. Madam Pomfrey gave him a pot of bruise salve and insisted he stay in the hospital wing for several hours as he waited for his teeth to regrow.

Harrison stood at the end of the bed, listening, as Ron and Hermione told their friend what they thought Snape had done during the game. Harry, unable to talk around his re-growing teeth, did his best to communicate with hands and facial expressions.

The spectre frowned. Hermione had meant to light Snape’s robes on fire, just like last time, but the broom had already thrown Harry off by the time she reached the opposite side of the stands.

_It’s different, but not by much, and the outcome is nearly the same._

Ron took back what he had said about Quiddich not being dangerous, and was deeply impressed that Harry had the sense to slow his own fall and catch the Snitch all in one. Harrison silently agreed with him.

Hagrid arrived with a packet of rock cakes and two flagons of pumpkin juice. A couple minutes later, Ron compared Harry’s fast thinking with “that time he started _singing_ when we nearly got eaten by a Cerebus the size of a –”

Hagrid interrupted with the bombshell that the damn beast was named _Fluffy_. Harrison snickered at the childrens' faces and relaxed, recognizing where things were going.

He was right. Within two minutes Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew Flamel was somehow involved in their Great Cerebus Mystery.

Harrison never understood why Dumbledore included Hagrid in this farce. He loved Hagrid dearly, but the man was a ridiculously easy source of information for the trio of troublemakers. Too easy.

            _Please,_ Harrison thought, closing his eyes, _Don’t let this be a set up._

He spent the next several hours in his mindscape, going over memories of the challenges they’d overcome on their way to the Stone. It was no use. The challenges were too perfectly tailored to their skills and experiences: Hagrid’s dog, a plant covered in first year Herbology, a small flying object, a chess set, a troll, a logic puzzle. The Mirror was the only thing they could not have overcome with a little thought and effort, and Dumbledore had effectively shown it to Harry that very Christmas.

Harrison slammed a fist into the studio wall. It didn’t hurt as sharply as he thought it would. It didn’t help, either.

            _Nothing you can do about it, yet._

He breathed, concentrated, opened his eyes in the now-empty hospital wing, and set off for a quiet place to practice his corporeality. He was furious with Dumbledore and he had no body.

             _Voldemort’s a dick, but he was right about one thing. Ten years of this is enough to drive you to murder._

That thought stopped him in the middle of a corridor, heedless of the students passing through him. He wasn’t homicidal. Not really. At least, he hoped not.

* * *

It so happened that the Dark Lord had, in light of recent events, decided that homicide was not the most favorable course of action. Harry Potter’s _Arresto Momentum_ demonstrated forward thinking, grace under pressure, and magical prowess; traits he greatly appreciated in his followers, not in his prophecied enemies.

But Potter was young and, if rumor were true, very new to the magical world. Perhaps he could be…persuaded.

            “Er, professor?”

Quirrell’s head rose from his paperwork. He sat at the desk in his classroom, grading fifth year essays.

            _Ah, hello._ The Dark Lord purred, quietly, where Quirrell could not hear him. _Speak of the devil._ _Let’s see what you want, boy._ Potter appeared curious and slightly apprehensive. His eyes were very green.

            “How may I help you, Mr P-p-potter?”

            “Can you…I mean, would you be willing to give me extra defense lessons?”

Quirrell looked so shocked that Potter took a step back and started apologizing. The Dark Lord gave his servant a hard mental nudge to accept before Potter left entirely.

            “Y-yes, of course, Mr Potter, but you hardly n-need them.” Potter made a face.

            “Professor, I’ve only been here three months and I’ve already been attacked by a troll, my own broom, and…well, yeah. Is that normal, sir?”

            “Hmm!” Quirrell made a nervous, high-pitched noise in his throat as the Dark Lord’s hissing laughter rang inside his head. “N-n-no. Er. Quite right, Mr P-potter, quite right. C-come back this t-time W-w-Wednesday and we’ll get st-started.”

* * *

Ron was waiting for him outside the Defense classroom. They started off toward the Great Hall for lunch.

            “I still don’t get why you want lessons from _Quirrell_. I mean, his classes are fine, but the stutter’s going to drive you up the wall.”

Harry sighed.

            “I like Quirrell, ok? He’s…safe.”

            “Safe.” Ron deadpanned. “Safer than Snape, maybe, but he’s still a cowardly dolt in a turban.”

Harry just looked at the taller boy until he began to fidget.

            “Yeah, alright. Quirrell.” Ron threw his hands up in dramatic surrender.


	7. Harry's First Christmas

Christmas was coming. The whole lake surface froze and, one morning in late December, the castle awoke to find itself covered in a thick layer of snow. While the Hogwarts house elves kept roaring fires going in the common rooms and the Great Hall, they could do little about the castle’s draughty corridors or the bitter wind which rattled the windows in the classrooms.

One advantage of not having a proper body was that Harrison Black could take a window seat in the library and not worry about the chill coming off the glass. His window showed a picturesque view of the grounds and part of the Forbidden Forest, white and glinting in the weak winter sun. He admired it, then turned in his seat to face the towering wall of books and closed his eyes, breathing slowly and steadily until the quiet hum of voices and rustling paper faded away.

— _clenched fists, short nails biting into the palms – the curved, slightly dented handle of a holly wand – a cloak that slipped through his hands like water, smoother than silk – the warm, scratchy warmth of a green jumper_ _—_

Harrison opened his eyes and stared straight ahead, concentrating hard. When he raised his hands they were a pale pearly gray, barely visible, and faded into nothing at the elbow. He ran his fingers down the spines of the books, ignoring their titles, focusing intently on the feel of their rough, bumpy, smooth, indented, or cracked leather surfaces. He let one hand close around a thick, dark brown volume with an interesting ridged spine, pulled it out from the shelf, and let the open end fall into his other hand. For several minutes he stood there, concentrating on the textues under his fingers, feeling the weight drag on invisible shoulders. Anyone looking at him would see a book held in mid-air by two ghostly forearms.

 _Thud._ The book fell through Harrison’s hands and hit the carpet as the thing that had distracted him – a group of giggling third year boys – passed by the far end of the narrow row.

            _Best time yet,_ he thought as he watched his hands slowly disappear. He’d just managed fifteen minutes of partial corporeality. Hopefully, though, his permenant body would look more like a warm-blooded, twenty-something human man and less like Nearly Headless Nick. Harrison stood, deciding he deserved a break, and went in search of the Golden Trio.

For the past few weeks Harry, Ron and Hermione had been coming into the library during their breaks and on weekends to hunt for information on Nicholas Flamel, just as Harrison and his two best friends had done during their first year. He found Ron and Hermione near the library entrance. Hermione was going through a list of promising subjects, while Ron walked up and down nearby aisles pulling books out at random. Watching them, Harrison had an idea.

            _Here’s something!_ he thought, his chest filling with excitement, _I can do this. I can help._ It was just a little thing. The future wouldn’t change much if his friends ( _correction, Harry’s friends_ ) found out about Flamel before Christmas. He wouldn’t be playing God, not really, if he just made their search a little easier.

Harrison shut his eyes again and entered his mindscape. After a brief search he found a memory from after his first Christmas at Hogwarts, when he’d cheered up Neville with a few hearty words and a chocolate frog. He rewound the memory twice until he found the name of the book Hermione had taken for “light reading,” as well as the page number of the passage on Flamel.

Back in the library, it was but the work of a moment to find the book and leave it on a nearby table. A seventh year saw his disembodied forearms, but seemed to dismiss the sight as just another quirk of life at Hogwarts.

Ron and Hermione returned with their stacks of books. Harrison smiled when he saw the titles Hermione’d picked out: _Great Wizards of the Twentith Century, Important Modern Magical Discoveries_ , and _A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry_. They were talking as they sat down at the table where Harrison’s book lay open.

            “ – what Harry would like for Christmas?”

            “Hmm. Mum’s sending fudge from me. Just ask him when he’s done with Quirrell.” Hermione wrinkled her nose, clearly remembering her parents’ opinion of fudge.

 _What’s Harry doing with Quirrell?_ Harrison glanced between Ron and Hermione, distracted. Neither seemed concerned, _But_ , Harrison thought uneasily, _nobody knows Voldemort’s under his turban_. He strode out of the library toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, then broke into a run as a knot of worry hardened in his stomach.

* * *

Harry shivered. He sat at a desk across from Professor Quirrell in the Defense classroom, which was warmer than the Potions class in the dungeons, but he missed the fireplace in Gryffindor tower.

This was his fourth weekly lesson with Professor Quirrell. They’d started with simple dueling moves like _Expelliarmus,_ the Disarming Spell, until Harry mentioned the “swell and pull” of his magic. Quirrell had paused the lesson with a frown. Harry'd grinned when the professor asked him to describe exactly what it felt like to cast a spell.

Magic felt _wonderful_. It was a wellspring of sparkling warmth which expanded through his chest in the breath before a spell and rushed through his wand arm as he said an incantation. He always felt himself drawing out less of his magical fire if the incantation was wrong, because he just _knew_ it was wrong even as he said it, and his magic obeyed that intuitive mental undercurrent before the rest of him had time to catch up.

Professor Quirrell was impressed. While it wasn’t unusual for a wizard to be able to sense his magical power in action, such wizards couldn’t do so until after they turned seventeen. And so Harry and Quirrell set about testing the limits of Harry’s control with a charm he already knew, _Wingardium Leviosa_. Harry practiced drawing out less and less magic for the spell, until he could use a mere thread of magic to make a quill lift _just_ off the table. Today they intended to go in the opposite direction: using incrementally larger amounts of power to raise heavier and heavier objects.

Professor Quirrell said that Harry’s magical awareness could be very useful one day, and insisted that letting such a skill languish would be a terrible waste.

* * *

            “Useful for _what,_ you creepy bastard?!” shouted Harrison. Of course, nobody heard. Quirrell continued using Substantive Charms to weigh down one of the desks as Harry used increasingly powerful Levitating Charms to lift it off the classroom floor. The boy was grinning widely and starting to sweat. Quirrell merely looked pleased. Harrison was furious, shocked and, above all, scared. Part of him registered that the professor no longer stuttered.

Harry and was getting extra lessons. From Quirrell. From _Voldemort_.

 _Maybe,_ thought Harrison, somewhat hysterically, _they’re both tutoring him. Quirrell and Voldemort. Quirrellmort. Oh…God…this is bad. Really bad._ When did this start? How had Harrison not noticed? And, above all else, what did these lessons mean for the timeline in this world? Would everything be changed beyond recognition? Were his memories now useless? Had he spent years practicing corporeality for _nothing_?

Harrison focused back on the room as teacher and student lowered their wands. Their conversation made him feel even worse, if that were possible.

 _Christ…is Quirrellmort_ grooming _him?_

The spectre gave the two wizards his undivided attention. He’d finish his existential crisis later.

* * *

Professor Quirrell moved to sit behind his desk.

            “You’ve got the gist of it now, Potter. Practice precision levitation over the holidays…but if I hear reports of you moving something preposterous, like a house table, I will be very disappointed in you.” The professor leveled a warning look at him, then sat back with a faint smile. “If you insist on showing off, well…don’t get caught.”

Harry tried not to smile.

            “Next term we’ll start on Stunning spells, and – yes?”

            “Is that what Professor Snape and Professor McGonagal used on the troll?” Harry asked. Professor Quirrell twitched. Harry remembered that the man had fainted on Hallowe’en and rather wished he’d kept his mouth shut, but Quirrell was already speaking.

            “Yes – it took two Stunners to the head. Now, Potter, I want you to think – what would you have done if the professors had not been there to save you and your friends?” Harry thought. The troll hadn’t noticed the pipe Ron threw, but it reacted to loud noises. Confuse it with a really loud spell? What if that just made it madder, like Snape’s first Stunner? Harry immediately ruled out using Stunning spells himself because, if Snape couldn’t take out the troll without help, then a first year certainly couldn’t. Perhaps if he combined a loud spell with something else…

Harry’s eyes landed on their practice desk. He smiled.

            “First, I’d cast something that made a really big noise, to confuse it, then I’d levitate something big and heavy, and drop it on the troll’s head. Knock it out, ‘cause trolls probably can’t be Disarmed.” Professor Quirrell nodded.

            “Very well done, Potter. Sensible use of Light spells against a…creature most consider Dark.” Harry frowned.

            “What do you mean? Aren’t trolls just Dark anyway?”

Professor Quirrell considered him for a moment before he spoke.

            “No. Trolls, like giants, grindylows, and many other creatures, are “Dark” because the Ministry of Magic cannot easily control them. _Wingardium Leviosa_ is likewise a “Light” spell because it is so easy to control; I chose to use it with you for that very reason.”

Suddenly Harry felt his performance was rather less impressive than he’d thought. This must have shown on his face, because Quirrell smiled. “What you have done is not insignificant, Mr Potter, though I would still prefer if you did not crow your victories from the highest peak.”

            “Yes, professor.”

* * *

Harry and the invisible Harrison were halfway dow n the cold corridor outside the Defense classroom when they saw Ron and Hermione running to meet them, Hermione cradling an enormous old book. Harrison grimaced. He’d forgotten about his attempt to help.

            “Harry! Harry, _look_!” said Hermione, her face flushed with excitement. Ron was grinning. “We found him!”

            “ _What?_ ” Harry’s face lit up. Ron grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him into an empty classroom. Hermione propped the book on a desk.

            “Nicholas Flamel,” she whispered dramatically, “is the _only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone!”_

This didn’t have quite the effect they’d expected.

            “The what?” said Harry.

            “I didn’t know what it was either.” Ron reassured him.

            “Oh, _honestly_ , don’t you two read? Look – read that, there.”

She pushed the book towards them, and Harry read. Harrison watched the exchange thoughtfully. Their conversation was almost exactly the same as last time. Maybe, just maybe, the timeline wasn’t as easily compromised as he’d first thought.

* * *

Harrison was right. McGonagall and Flitwick still decorated the Great Hall with holly, mistletoe, and twelve colossal Christmas trees; Harry and Ron still spent the beginning of the holidays plotting ways of getting Malfoy expelled; and Ron still taught Harry to play wizard chess. Harry opened exactly the same presents on Christmas morning, and Ron complained about his latest maroon jumper…though, this time, there was an awkward moment when Harry muttered that at least Ron _had_ a mother to make him ugly sweaters for Christmas. Harrison didn’t know what to make of that.

That night, Harrison followed the sound of Harry’s footsteps as he wandered around the castle under his invisibility cloak. He wondered where Harry would go, now that he no longer needed to search for Flamel in the Restricted Section.

They had just turned a corner on the fifth floor when Snape’s voice rang out somewhere ahead of them.

            “The Restricted Section? Well, they can’t be far, we’ll catch them.”

Harry panicked and ran, ducking into a disused classroom. Harrison, jogging noiselessly behind him, was intruigued. That was exactly what Snape said last time. Some other student had clearly snuck into the library, just as he had done. Was the timeline…correcting itself? No, it couldn’t. Could it?

While Harry waited for Snape and Filch to pass his hiding spot, Harrison went and stood before the Mirror of Erised.

Nothing. 

He sighed. He hadn’t really expected the mirror to work for a spectre like him.

            “Mum?” Harry whispered, walking through Harrison until his nose nearly touched that of his reflection. “Dad?”

Harrison felt a twinge of jealousy. He wished he could see their family, too.

* * *

The following night, Harrison trailed Harry and Ron as his younger self brought their friend to see his great discovery. Ron goggled when it revealed his desire to outdo his many brothers and, just like last time, the two friends fought over the mirror before nearly getting caught by Mrs Norris.

The third night, Harrison watched with some distaste as Dumbledore explained the mirror’s properties. He disliked how Dumbledore manipulated Harry but was he, Harrison, really any better? He wanted to change certain things  _so badly_ in the coming years...but was he clever and careful enough to do it without making everything worse? _  
_

            “The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever _do_ run across it, you will now be prepared.” Harrison glared at the headmaster. “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don’t you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?”

As Harry and Dumbledore stood up, the far side of Dumbledore’s robe twitched as if he’d made a small movement with a concealed wand.

 _Ah._ Harrison thought. _There goes the compulsion from the note. “Use it well.” Hmph._

* * *

The snow didn’t melt until well into the start of term. Harrison kept close tabs on Harry and his friends as they studied, went to class, practiced Quiddich, or attended Quirrell’s extra lessons on defense and magical theory. The spectre remained deeply unsettled by these tutoring sessions.

He laughed his invisible face off when, near the end of January, the Weasley twins bewitched several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban.


	8. The Devil You Know

In March, Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor team found out that Snape intended to referee their upcoming match against Hufflepuff. Everyone thought Snape, who _never_ refereed Quiddich, was doing it to stop Gryffindor from overtaking Slytherin in the race for the house cup, but Harry, Ron and Hermione were sure the professor meant for Harry to have another potentially fatal “accident.”

Harry started to see Snape wherever he went. Hermione said it was just nerves, that he was imagining it, yet Harry couldn’t escape the feeling that Snape was following him. The professor was absolutely horrible to Harry during Potions lessons, which had become a sort of weekly torture.

Could Snape possibly know they’d found out about the Philosopher’s Stone? Harry didn’t see how he could – yet he sometimes had the horrible feeling that Snape could read minds.

* * *

            “Come on, Potter! Again!”

            “ _Stupify!_ Damn it!”

The hairy, magically enlarged spider Harry had been trying to Stun jumped sideways, avoiding the bolt of red light. Harry dropped his wand arm, clenching his teeth. Professor Quirrell silently immobilized the spider, crossed his arms, and leant back against the teachers’ desk.

            “You aren’t concentrating. What’s wrong, Potter?”

Harry went to wipe his nose on his robes and stopped when Quirrell gave the offending sleeve a pointed look.

            “It’s nothing, professor.” Quirrell waited quietly. When Harry didn’t speak, he raised his eyebrows. Harry shrugged and looked at the floor, rolling his wand in his hands. When he finally spoke the words came out in a rush.

            “I think Snape’s trying to kill me, sir, he jinxed my broom in the first Quiddich match, and now he’s gonna referee the next one, and – ” Harry broke off and stared as Quirrell roared with startled laughter.

            “ _Professor_ Snape isn’t trying to kill you, Potter!” Harry scowled. Of course no adult would believe him. He shouldn’t have let himself hope this man would be any different. Professor Quirrell seemed to know what Harry was thinking, because he stopped laughing and examined the boy, his face suddenly serious.

            “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t…out to get you.” Harry looked up, startled. “What do you know of Professor Snape, Potter?”

            “He favors Slytherin a _lot_ , and he’s their head of house. He’s also the youngest Potions Master in ages, which means he’s smart, but he’s pants at teaching because he’s forever scaring people. Neville melts a cauldron a month, sure, but he wouldn’t be half as bad if Snape let him alone. Er…and Percy Weasley said he’s after your job, sir, because he knows so much about the…“Dark” Arts.”

Quirrell smoothed a hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

            “Mmm. Mr Longbottom does have an, ah…talent for destruction. And how does Professor Snape treat you in class?”

Harry fidgeted. Talking about Neville was easier. Quirrell waved a hand at him, encouraging him to speak up.

            “He asks me loads of questions, and says stuff like how _famous Harry Potter_ should know the answers, but, if I get one right, he says I’m as arrogant as my father. He’s _always_ comparing me to my dad.”

            “Potter – ”

            “How’s that fair, sir? I didn’t even _know_ my dad! He’s – ”

             “Potter!” Harry clapped his mouth shut, looking sheepish. “Your father and Professor Snape were in the same year at Hogwarts. Did you know that?”

Harry shook his head.

            “Their relationship was…antagonistic. At best. From what I’ve heard, they did everything in their  power to make each other’s lives miserable…” Quirrell’s voice trailed off expectantly.

            “…and I look remarkably like my father.” Harry finished with a sigh. Quirrell inclined his head. “Everyone says so. But my dad’s still _dead_ , professor. He never raised me.” Harry blinked a few times. Quirrell said nothing. “And they must have finished Hogwarts _ages_ ago, sir. Professor Snape’s really holding a grudge for that long?”

            “It is the most likely explanation, yes.”

Harry thought about that for a moment.

            “Can’t I do anything about it?”

            “You can try.” Quirrell paused, then said, “Professor Snape demands respect, punctuality, and he values intelligence. Call him “sir” or “professor” at all times, and never let your face or voice show what you really think of him. Make a point of getting to Potions early so that you may set your things up without interrupting the class. Prepare by reading ahead, like your friend Ms Granger, and _pay attention_ to his instructions. Have you done much cooking?

            “Oh, yes. Sir.”

Quirrell frowned slightly at Harry’s cynical tone, but chose not to comment on it. “Think of potions as complicated recipes. It will help. And, above all, _do not_ get caught sneaking around the castle at night. Your father did it constantly. I’ve heard it led to some nasty confrontations between him, and his friends, and Professor Snape.”

            “Thank you, sir, but…what about Quiddich?”

Quirrell smiled.

            “Professor Snape certainly loathed your father’s talent for the game, but…do not worry about Quiddich. I believe Professor Dumbledore means to attend your next match. You’ll be quite safe, Potter.”

            “Thank you, sir!” Harry smiled brightly.

* * *

For all that Harrison loved watching Harry play Quiddich, it always made him long for his old Firebolt, the rush of wind, and the ecstatic freedom of flight.

Harry looked almost carefree as the Gryffindor team walked out onto the pitch. Harrison frowned, remembering Harry’s most recent lesson with Quirrellmort. The spectre still did not know what to make of their budding…friendship? Mentorship? What did the man hope to gain by telling Harry that Snape hated James Potter, or by giving Harry legitimately good advice for surviving Potions? What was he playing at?

On the Quiddich pitch, Snape looked like he’d eaten something foul.

 _So would I_ , Harrison thought grimly, _if I were forced to protect the living reminder of my own worst failures._

He stood in the stands behind Ron and Hermione who, it turned out, planned to use the Leg Locker curse on Snape if necessary. Harrison snorted at the thought of Snape hurtling through the air, stiff as a board and mad as a hornet, with his broom stuck between his frozen legs.

A whistle blew and the players kicked off. Snape wasted no time favoring Hufflepuff.

Harrison missed Harry’s record-setting catch entirely because he got sidetracked by a fight that broke out between Ron, Malfoy, Neville, Crabbe and Goyle. Did that happen last time? He would have to check his memories and find out. Neville did brilliantly, standing up to Malfoy and taking Crabbe and Goyle on all by himself.

* * *

The weather improved and the Easter holidays came and went, with Hermione badgering her boys into preparing for their final exams. Ron took a little more convincing than Harry, but they both joined her in the library more often than not. Hermione started carrying a bag of snacks to keep Ron quiet.

Harry continued his weekly lessons with Quirrellmort. They covered Stunning spells, two different anti-jinx spells, and the Revealing Charm. Most lessons ended with Quirrell answering Harry’s questions. He taught the boy the rules of formal dueling, described cursed objects he’d encountered during his travels, and told him the prevailing theories on how magic actually worked.

According to Quirrell, magic was one of the fundamental forces that held the universe together. He introduced Harry to the idea that magic was magic, with no real difference between “Light” and “Dark” despite what his job title implied. Rather, these labels were the somewhat arbitrary result of hundreds of years of tradition and an evolving magical legal system. Opinions on whether a spell was Light or Dark even varied from country to country.

Quirrell also explained to Harry that Light spells could be used with the intent to harm just as easily as Dark spells. Harry thought this made sense, and told Quirrell how he’d stuck Malfoy’s lips together in the library. Quirrell, in turn, told him about a particularly nasty curse which expelled the target’s entrails. That curse, a favorite of some Dark wizards, had originally been invented to make butchering livestock cleaner and less time consuming.

Harrison silently observed every one of these lessons. He remained angry and apprehensive toward the situation but, over time, he became just as interested as Harry in the discussions of magical theory. He was reluctantly impressed with Quirrellmort’s logic, though he didn't agree with it, and upset to find himself impressed.

What disturbed him most, however, was that the professor seemed almost fond of Harry, while Harry himself always seemed reluctant to leave the Defense classroom when their sessions ended.

* * *

Harry walked through the Entrance Hall one sunny afternoon, deep in thought. He had just finished Revealing Charms with Professor Quirrell. 

He had also worked up the courage to ask about Voldemort.

Professor Quirrell hadn’t said anything for a long time. He looked Harry straight in the eye, and Harry couldn’t look away. When Quirrell finally spoke, his voice was quiet and completely serious.

The professor told him that, a long time ago, jealous and fearful Muggles hunted down and killed many hundreds of magical people and almost caused several kinds of magical creature to go extinct. Magical beings have power that Muggles can only dream of – yet there have always been far, far more Muggles than magicals.

The main purpose of the Ministry of Magic, he said, was not to govern witches and wizards, but to protect them. Their job was to keep the Muggles ignorant. Lord Voldemot was an immensely powerful wizard who mastered magics that few had even heard of, let alone tried to wield. For this reason, many called him the Dark Lord.

The Dark Lord saw that over time the Ministry of Magic had become complacent, and sloppy, and followed policies that put the entire wizarding world in danger. They, for example, allowed magical children to grow up with Muggles who were cruel, or neglectful, and did nothing to cover up the results of their accidental magic. Conversely, the Ministry overreached itself by presuming to dictate what magics could or could not be legally performed.

Lord Voldemort declared that this must change. He waged war against the Ministry. It was a terrible war, Quirrell said, but one many thought was necessary.

Harry listened, and when Quirrell dismissed him he walked out into the grounds and sat by the lake in the sun.

Voldemort didn’t sound like the wizard Hagrid described, the one who was “worse than worse,” the wizard who went “as bad as you could go.” The Voldemort whom Professor Quirrell described made…some kind of sense. Ruthless and violent, sure, but Harry knew how bad it was to be at the mercy of Muggles who were afraid of magic.

And yet Voldemort _killed his parents_. Harry may not have known them, but they were still the Mum and Dad he’d seen in the mirror. He had spent years wishing for someone, anyone, to rescue him from the Dursleys, and Voldemort was the reason no one came. Until Hagrid. Harry loved Hagrid for giving him his letter, and his first birthday present, but…but…

Harry shook his head. It didn’t matter anymore, because Voldemort was gone.

Probably.

* * *

Harrison paced up and down the lake shore beside Harry.

The professor must have lied. Voldemort was _insane_. He, Harrison, had witnessed that insanity with his own eyes. The Voldemort he knew tortured and killed anyone who opposed him. The man’s only goal was to rule over everyone, wizard or Muggle, who didn’t fit his standards for blood purity.

If Quirrellmort lied, then this Voldemort was just as evil as the noseless bastard Harrison remembered, and would behave in roughly the same way. If he had not lied, then there was a chance this Voldemort was…saner, or at least fought for more sensible reasons, and Harrison would not be able to anticipate his movements.

Which was worse; an evil, predictable Voldemort or a rational, unpredictable one?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that Harrison's a bit of an unreliable narrator here because he thinks "evil" and "rational" are opposites. They aren't. And he's gonna be really uncomfortable when he finds that out.


	9. The Dragon

The Gryffindor first years climbed the stairs from the dungeons on their way to the Great Hall. They had just finished Potions with the Slytherins, and Harry was feeling rather pleased with himself.

He, Ron and Hermione had been reading ahead for the class, arriving early to set up their cauldrons and ingredients, and working as quietly and carefully as possible. Ron made a real effort not to doodle or gossip. Hermione restrained her enthusiasm when Snape quizzed them on magical herbs and fungi. Harry concentrated on the brewing instructions, defended his cauldron from Malfoy’s occasional attempts at sabotage, and consciously stopped himself from reacting to the professor’s barbed comments.

Their efforts finally began to show positive results that morning: Snape let Hermione answer a question, and he ignored Harry and Ron entirely. It was definitely an improvement, and Harry was very glad to see Professor Quirrell’s advice paying off. The attempt to make Snape less antagonistic was not their only project, however.

They’d caught Hagrid looking up books on dragon keeping in the library late last week. When they confronted him and discovered the dragon egg in his fireplace, the gamekeeper said he’d won the egg from a stranger in Hogsmead who was impressed that Hagrid knew how to handle a three-headed dog. When they found out that Hagrid didn’t even know what the man looked like, Ron asked, “But what if he was after the Stone?”

Hagrid wasn’t happy to hear that they knew who Flamel was and what Fluffy was guarding, but after some flattery from Hermione he told them that Professors Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Quirrell, Snape, and Dumbledore had all contributed enchantments to protect the Philosopher’s Stone. Hagrid thought that made the third floor corridor safer than Gringotts.

Harry and Ron later agreed that man in the pub must be after the Stone. Hermione wasn’t convinced. She said the stranger might know how to get past Fluffy, but they couldn’t possibly work out the teachers’ enchantments.

One day at lunch, the boys were trying to get Hermione to tell them what she’d do if she had the Philosopher’s Stone when Hedwig arrived. Harry gave her a bit of ham and she began preening herself as he opened the note, which was from Hagrid. He had only written two words: _It’s hatching._

Ron was all for skipping Herbology and going straight down to the hut. Hermione wouldn’t hear of it.

            “Hermione, how many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatchling?”

            “We’ve got lessons, we’ll get into trouble, and Hagrid’s going to be in even _more_ trouble when someone finds out what he’s doing – ”

            “Shut up!” Harry whispered.

Malfoy was passing by the Gryffindor table and stopped dead to listen. How much had he heard? Enough, if the look on Malfoy’s face was any indication.

* * *

Later that day Harry, Ron, Hermione and Hagrid sat around the wooden table in Hagrid’s hut. Harrison stood behind Ron’s chair. They all stared at the large black egg on the table. It wobbled back and forth. Thin fractures riddled its surface; a funny clicking noise was coming from inside.

Everyone but Hagrid jumped as the egg _cracked_ , loudly, and fell open. The baby dragon flopped onto the tablecloth, all wings and tail. Harrison thought it still looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. The dragon had a skinny body, a long snout, wide nostrils, stubby horns and bulging, bright orange eyes.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout toward Hermione, who twitched backward, looking anxious.

            “Isn’t he _beautiful_?” Hagrid murmered. He reached out to stroke the dragon’s head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

            “Bless ‘im, look, he knows his mummy!” said Hagrid.

            “Hagrid,” said Hermione, “how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?”

Hagrid was about to answer when the color suddenly drained from his face – he leapt to his feet and ran through Harrison to the window.

            “What’s the matter?”

            “Someone was lookin’ through the gap in the curtains – it’s a kid – he’s runnin’ back up ter the school.” Harry bolted to the door and looked out. Even at a distance there was no mistaking the boy’s white blond hair. Malfoy had seen the dragon.

* * *

They visited Hagrid as often as possible over the next week, trying to convince him to set the dragon free. It had already tripled in size and begun to vent thick smoke from its nostrils. The floor of Hagrid’s hut was strewn with empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers from its breakfast.

            “I’ve decided to call him Norbert,” said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. “He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where’s Mummy?”

            “He’s lost his marbles,” Ron muttered in Harry’s ear.

            “Hagrid,” said Harry loudly, “give it a fortnight and Norbert’s going to be as long as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment.”

Hagrid bit his lip.

            “I – I know I can’t keep him forever, but I can’t jus’ dump him, I can’t.”

Harry suddenly _knew_ what to do with the dragon. He turned to Ron.

            “Charlie,” he said.

            “You’re losing it, too,” said Ron. “I’m Ron, remember?”

            “No – Charlie – your brother, Charlie. In Romania. Studying dragons. We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild!”

            “Brilliant!” said Ron. “How about it, Hagrid?” And in the end, Hgarid agreed that they could send an owl to Charlie to ask him.

* * *

On Wednesday, Charlie’s owl returned with the plan to transport Norbert. On Saturday, at a quarter past ten, Harrison stood in the entrance hall with Harry as they waited for Peeves to stop playing tennis against the wall. Contrary to Harrison’s memories, his younger self was alone under the invisibility cloak.

The past week had gone as expected, for the most part. Charlie had instructed them to meet his friends at midnight, with the dragon, at the top of the Astronomy tower. Ron was in the hospital wing having a dragon bite treated by Madam Pomfrey. Draco Malfoy went to taunt him on the pretext of borrowing a book, and found Charlie’s letter hidden inside.

Harrison realized that the Norbert adventure wasn’t going according to plan when Hermione turned up in the hospital wing as well, limping heavily, with tears pricking the corners of her eyes. Norbert’s tail had smashed into her ankle, leaving deep bruises and making it impossible for her to help Harry carry the dragon all the way up the tower.

Harry, looking grim, decided it was too late to change the plan. He told Ron and Hermione he’d get it done, somehow. They protested, of course, but Harry insisted that he’d always been able to get himself out of difficult situations.

Harrison was surprised at Harry’s confidence. What was the boy planning?

* * *

Harry pulled the invisibility cloak tighter around his shoulders as he walked across the grounds toward Hagrid’s hut. He was thinking about the Dursleys.

It was true, he _had_ always been able to get himself out of difficult situations. The first time his uncle came after him with raised fists and sherry on his breath, Harry _knew_ how to dodge under the first swing, run outside, and hide in the hydrangeas until the man stopped shouting and had gone upstairs to sleep it off. He was five.

There were exceptions to the rule, of course. The first (and last) time Dudley asked his mother how planes fly, Harry _knew,_ so he told them about aerodynamically shaped wings and differences in air pressure. He was four. After a moment of stunned silence, his aunt reacted by shutting him in the cupboard under the stairs for two days with no breakfast. He hadn’t been able to get out of that one.

Harry learned from an early age that he was different, a freak. He had always known things he shouldn’t, and living with his aunt and uncle taught him never to speak of such things because they _weren’t normal_.

* * *

The Dursleys did not teach Harry Potter to speak, or to read, or to dress himself, or brush his teeth or use the loo or any of a hundred everyday skills which parents teach their children. They didn’t want to do these things for him, and about six months after he was left on their doorstop Petunia realized they didn’t have to. Her sister’s unnatural toddler could and did brush his teeth, a little clumsily, without help. When she gave him Dudley’s old clothes, he knew how to put them on. She even caught the boy potty training himself and teaching himself how to walk.

It deeply unsettled Vernon and Petunia. They interacted with Harry as little as possible, yet _that_ two year old rapidly developed proper English syntax and pronunciation while _their_ two year old struggled to speak, even though they showered Dudley with attention and educational toys.

* * *

Before Hogwarts, Harry’s flashes of intuition had always involved  knowing _how_ things worked, like walking or writing properly. Or how to avoid drunken uncles. They had not involved _what_ to do. They were never original ideas, nor did they ever come with sudden, strong emotions.

That was why Harry had been unnerved once he got a chance to think about what happened on Hallowe’en. As he and Ron had followed Percy up the stairs outside the Great Hall, he’d felt an inexplicable rush of urgency as something inside told him _The Slytherins are in the dungeons. In danger. Help them._ Nothing told him how he could help, just that he should, and quickly. That was new, and he hadn’t been sure if he liked the change, but the flash of idea had nevertheless brought him five points to Gryffindor and a valuable new friend.

Since then he’d realized that his intuition was very like the surety of his spellcasting; he _knew_ the correct swish-and-flick of a Levitating Charm at age eleven just as he _knew_ the dynamics of flight at age four.

Harry hoped, as he knocked on Hagrid’s door, that it would help him now. He was right.

* * *

Harrison was confused. Harry had just dragged Norbert’s crate about halfway to the castle steps, then pushed back the hood of his cloak and sat down in the grass. The boy’s head was floating in mid-air, his face flushed with exertion, sweat making his fringe stick to his forehead. Harry frowned at the heavy crate while he caught his breath.

Suddenly, the boy’s face cleared. He smiled and stood up, moving around to the far side of the wooden box.

            “ _Wingardium leviosa_ ,” muttered Harry. The crate lifted scant inches off the ground. He took a tentative step forward, keeping his wand trained on his target, and Norbert moved with him. Harry grinned and kept going. The dragon made several restless noises before settling down.

            _Brilliant!_ Harrison thought. This boy was definitely cleverer than he had been. _And_ , he reluctantly admitted, _it looks like Quirrellmort’s lessons are paying off. Again._

It was slow going. Harry lost his concentration and dropped Norbert’s crate only once, at the foot of the stairs up to the castle. The noise hadn’t been that loud but he froze anyway, listening, until he was sure nobody was coming to investigate. After that he put the box down gently several times in deserted corridors to give himself a rest. He couldn’t believe his luck when he reached the Astronomy tower without being seen. He was sweating again after his extended use of magic, so he took off the cloak and let it fall into the shadows at the base of the parapet. Norbert snorted smoke and a few sparks at Harry’s feet, and he jumped back.

He didn’t realize that he had left the door to the stairs open.

* * *

Harrison tried to warn his younger self, but by the time he thought to make some part of himself visible the damage was already done.

            “You’re in for it now, Potter! You – ”

            “ _Expelliarmus!_ ” BANG.

            “ _Argh_ – ”

            CRUNCH.

Malfoy slammed backward into the stone side of the tower and slumped to the cold floor, unconscious. Harry stood with his wand arm out, breathing fast, his pulse racing as he stared at Malfoy. Harrison stared at both of them. It seemed that nobody, least of all Harry, had expected his reaction to be that fast or that forceful. For a moment the only sound was Harry’s frightened breathing and the shuffling movements of an agitated baby dragon.

Then, the noise of rapid footfalls growing louder and louder as someone climbed quickly up the tower stairs. There was an excited yowl.

            “Not Peeves this time, my sweet. Bloody poltergeist can’t Disarm – ”

Flich’s voice stung Harry into action. He lept forward, pushed the door shut, and hesitated for a frantic second before screwing his eyes shut and casting a Sticking charm on the door. When he opened his eyes, the edges had spread out in patches so that the door glued itself unevenly to the doorframe.

Harry ran to lean out over the edge of the tower, desperately searching the cloudy sky. Flich and Mrs Norris reached the top of the stairs, Filch banging on the door and shouting threats when it wouldn’t open. The racket upset Norbert and the dragon growled, loudly, and snorted more smoke. Filch stopped banging on the door.

            “Ooooh, now that’s a dangerous sounding beastie, isn’t it, my sweet? Just wait till Professor Snape hears about this…” Filch’s excited voice faded as he and his cat climbed back down the tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get it, cause "The Dragon" refers to Norbert and Draco Malfoy! Eh? Eh? BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING...Ok, sorry, I'll see myself out.


	10. Draco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for truelavender, who nearly persuaded me to withhold updates until I could post three chapters at once *evil grin*

When Harry finally spotted four broomsticks silhouetted against a cloud, he turned around, grabbed his invisibility cloak off the floor, and tossed it over Malfoy. He could only deal with one dragon at a time.

            _Please_ , Harry thought desperately, _don’t wake up yet_.

Charlie’s friends were a cheery lot who clearly thought Harry’s nervousness was due to him being out of bed after curfew. They showed Harry the harness they’d rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it and then shook hands with Harry, who thanked them very much. Harry was on tenterhooks the entire time, thinking that Filch could return with Snape at any moment.

At last, Norbert was going…going… _gone_.

            “Wha…?”

Malfoy was stirring. Harry groped around the floor until he found Malfoy’s knee, whipped the cloak off the boy, and pulled it around himself. Malfoy blinked several times, gazing blearily at the spot where Harry had disappeared.

Filch and Snape could be heard climbing the stairs. Harry moved, as quietly as he could, to the far edge of the tower and pressed himself against the parapet. He tried to breath slowly and silently. Malfoy rolled onto his side and retched once or twice, but did not vomit.

            “ _Reglutio!_ ” With Snape’s counter charm the edges of the door unstuck themselves from the doorframe. The Potions Master swept out of the stairwell and went immediately to Malfoy, who was now on his hands and knees.

            “Mr Malfoy! What happened, boy?”

Malfoy groaned.

            “I was attacked, sir…Potter attacked me.”

            “Ah,” said Snape, sounding both bitter and oddly satisfied. “Of course it was Potter.”

            “There was a dragon, too. He had it in a box.”

            “A…dragon.”

            “Sounds about right from what I heard, professor.”

            “Hmm. Take Mr Malfoy to the hospital wing, Mr Filch.”

            “Yes, professor, but –”

            “I will find Mr Potter.”

            “Right. Come on then, boy.” Filch grabbed Malfoy by the arm and dragged him to his feet. Harry followed them out the door and down the stairs, keen not to be left alone with Snape. He did not take the cloak off until he was safely on the landing outside the first year boys’ dormitory in Gryffindor tower.

* * *

The next morning, Harry went to visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing. Their cuts and bruises were healing nicely. They started to ask him about the night before, but Harry shushed them and glanced pointedly over his shoulder.

Malfoy was asleep in a bed on the opposite side of the room. Or, at least, he seemed to be asleep. Harry wasn’t taking chances. He told his friends he’d come visit them again later, and Hermione made him promise to bring her books.

He had barely sat down to breakfast when Percy hurried over.

            “Come with me, Potter. Professor McGonagall says you’re to see her in her office. Immediately.”

Harry swallowed his bite of sausage and nodded, dread welling up inside him. He followed Percy out of the Great Hall.

* * *

Percy ushered him into Professor McGonagall’s study on the first floor and closed the door behind him. The head of Gryffindor house sat at her desk, peering at Harry over her spectacles. Snape stood nearby, his arms crossed. Neville Longbottom was there, too. The look he gave Harry was terrified and desperately apologetic.

Harry swallowed. He was pretty sure he knew what this was all about, but Neville’s presence threw him off.

            “Draco Malfoy,” said Professor McGonagall, “is in the hospital wing with a severe concussion. He was found on the floor of the Astronomy tower last night and claims you attacked him, Mr Potter.”

            “ _What_? Professor McGonagall, I –”

            “I would never have believed it of you, Mr Potter, but Mr Filch heard a student, a _male_ student, cast a Disarming Charm moments before the tower door was Stuck shut.”

Harry kept his face blank. Faking surprise or innocence never worked with the Dursleys, and these people were a lot smarter than his aunt and uncle.

            “Did Filch see who it was, professor?”

            “No.” said Professor Snape, his eyes narrowed. “He did not see the dragon, either, but he heard noises that support Mr Malfoy’s story.”

            “Malfoy had a dragon?”

            “Do…not…interrupt…me, Mr Potter,”  Snape said slowly, his voice dangerous. Harry could have kicked himself.

_Be respectful. Don’t show what you’re thinking. Don’t get caught._

            “I’m sorry, professor.” Harry said, looking down. Professor McGonagall spoke.

            “I thought at first you fed Mr Malfoy some cock and bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble, but I cannot ignore Mr Flich's report. What do you have to say for yourself, Mr Potter?”

            “It’s true Malfoy and I aren’t…friends, professor, but I didn’t do anything. And why’s Neville here?”

            “Harry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know what – ” Neville started, but Snape cut him off.

            “After some…convincing, Mr Longbottom admitted you weren’t in your dormitory last night, Potter.”

Harry said nothing.

            “As it stands, there is no actual proof you were the one to assault Mr Malfoy, Potter – ”

            “I think – ”

            “There’s also nothing that proves he _wasn’t_ involved, Severus.” Professor McGonagall said briskly. “Mr Potter, you and Mr Malfoy will both receive detentions. _Nothing_ gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it’s very dangerous.”

Snape’s eyes glittered and his lips curled in a nasty smile. Neville shrank away from him. 

            “Allow them to serve their detentions with me, Minerva, and I will be...satisfied.”

            “Very well. Potter, Longbottom, return to Gryffindor tower, or to the Great Hall if you have not yet eaten. Expect the details of your detention by Monday, Mr Potter.”

They left. Harry went upstairs with Neville as their appetites had thoroughly disappeared. They didn’t say anything until they reached the common room. It was deserted except for Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who were gossiping by the fire.

            “Look, I’m really sorry Harry. Snape pounced on me on the way to breakfast, and I told him no before I knew what I was saying! I didn’t give you away on purpose, promise.”

Harry scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed.

            “Don’t worry about it, Neville. It’s not your fault. Snape’s got intimidation down to a science.”

            “A what?”

            Harry made a face. “It’s a…never mind.”

            “So,” whispered Neville, glancing around, “what _did_ happen?”

            “It was an accident,” said Harry, his voice equally quiet. “I’ll…I’ll tell you later. When Ron and Hermione get back.”

            “Okay.” Neville still looked worried. Harry gave him a small smile, patted him on the shoulder, and went to ask Parvati and Lavender if they could fetch Hermione’s book bag from the girl’s dormitory.

* * *

Harrison did not follow the boys back to Gryffindor tower. Instead, he marched out of the castle and across the grounds towards Hagrid’s cabin.

Gryffindor hadn’t lost any points, so the school probably wouldn’t shun Harry and his friends for allowing Slytherin to take the house cup yet again. Hermione hadn’t been involved at all this time, and Neville only played a part after the fact. Harry and Malfoy were still getting detentions, but with Snape rather than Hagrid.

Harrison knew his detention in the Forbidden Forest had meant seeing Quirrell drink unicorn’s blood to keep Voldemort alive, though he hadn’t known it was Quirrell at the time. He had thought Voldemort was hiding in the Forest waiting for Snape to get him the Philosopher’s Stone.

Until now Harrison assumed the unicorns were still being attacked, but what if he was wrong? McGonagall hadn’t said anything about Hagrid needing help. Besides, if Malfoy knew the dragon belonged to the gamekeeper, why hadn’t anyone asked Hagrid what happened? It seemed unlikely that Malfoy’s injury would distract him so thoroughly that he’d forget that detail, but the boy was as self-centered as Dudley. 

Harrison shadowed Hagrid for several days, yet found nothing whatsoever to show that Quirrellmort had been killing unicorns. So he began following Quirrellmort himself.

* * *

Because he was following Hagrid and Quirrell, Harrison did not attend the detention with Snape. He did not see the truly appalled look on Draco Malfoy’s face when he was told he’d be scrubbing cauldrons, without magic, for eight hours.

            “But this is servant stuff, it’s not for students to do. I thought we’d be writing lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this, he’d – ”

            “ – tell you that’s how things are at…this…school.” Snape finished smoothly. “Writing _lines_. What good would that do? You will do something useful, both of you, or get out. If you think Lucius Malfoy would rather you were expelled, then you may return to your dormitory and pack.”

Malfoy and Harry didn’t move. Malfoy looked at Snape furiously but then dropped his gaze. The professor directed them toward a pile of scoring pads, soap, and two self-refilling buckets of water. He then declared that he expected them to scrub _quietly,_ as he would be in the next room grading papers. He left them to it.

Harry got started. His first cauldron was covered in bright pink slime. His second and third cauldrons had an inch of something green and revoltingly hairy at the bottom. He had just caught the last blob of an orange goo which had been actively evading his attempts to clean it when he realized that Malfoy was only on his second cauldron. The blond behaved as though he’d never scrubbed a pot in his life.

 _Which_ , Harry thought, as he watched Malfoy over the edge of his fifth cauldron, _is probably true. I bet he really does have servants for this kind of thing._ He decided to help Malfoy, a little, because he truly had not meant to put the boy in the hospital wing.

He dropped his eyes and fidgeted, resettling himself so that Malfoy could easily see how he held the scoring pad. He started scrubbing in slightly exaggerated motions. After a moment the sound of Malfoy’s cleaning paused, then resumed. Harry waited. Both boys finished one cauldron, then another. He glanced over when Malfoy started on a big bronze one with yellow and orange splotches. The blond’s movements were now much more efficient.

Malfoy caught him looking.

            “How’re you so good at servant work, Potter? Do the Muggles you live with make you do all their dishes?” he hissed.

            “Does your precious father know you risked expulsion to chase _dragons_ , Draco?”

            “There _was_ a bloody dragon and I _know_ it was you, you lying sack of – ” Malfoy’s voice rose angrily.

            “Language, Malfoy, and _be quiet_.” Harry whispered fiercely. “It’ll be worse for us if Snape has to come out and shut us up himself.”

Malfoy sneered, but he shut up. They scrubbed in silence for a little over an hour.

            “Playing on my name to change the subject, putting me on the defensive...that was practically Slytherin of you, Potter.”

            Harry looked up warily. Malfoy had stopped scrubbing and was looking at him through narrowed eyes.

            “Thank you?”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You take being Slytherin as a compliment?”

            “It is. From you, anyway. ” Harry resumed work on his latest cauldron. Malfoy snorted, evidently displeased that Harry wasn’t going to fight him. He was wrong.

            “I know I’ll be in Slytherin,” whispered Harry, mimicking Draco’s drawl from their first meeting in Madam Malkin’s. “All our family have been – ”

Malfoy went red.

            “You – ” He hissed, but Harry cut him off.

            “The only reason _I’m_ not in Slytherin,” he said, his voice cold and quiet, “is ‘cause I begged the Sorting Hat to put me somewhere else; anywhere but the house with _Draco Malfoy_.”

He went back to scrubbing cauldrons. Malfoy was staring at him, speechless. Neither of them noticed that, in the other room, Snape’s quill had stopped scratching.

            “Merlin. _Why?_ ”

            “Scrub and talk, Malfoy, or we’ll be here all night.” Malfoy reluctantly pulled over another cauldron. After a moment, Harry said,

            “You’re a lot like my cousin Dudley.”

            “A _Muggle?_ ” Malfoy sneered quietly. He kept scrubbing.

            “Yes, Malfoy, you’re as bad as a fucking Muggle.”

            “Language, Potter.” Malfoy smirked. Harry glared at him.

            “He made my life hell before Hogwarts, and you’ve tried to do the same at Hogwarts.” Harry glanced at Malfoy. “He’s a lot fatter than you, though, and not as sneaky.”

Malfoy looked rather pleased at that. Harry rolled his eyes.

* * *

The first time Quirrell entered the third floor corridor with a shrunken harp in his robe pocket, Harrison panicked.

            _Damn it. Don’t do this yet. It’s too early._ He was sorely tempted to make his hands solid and cause a distraction by…by punching Voldemort in his parasitic face, or something, but he was held back by old fear and years of Occlumancy training. He forced the panic down.

He made himself watch as Quirrell subdued Fluffy, repelled the Devil’s Snare with conjured sunlight, caught the flying key, and played his way across McGonagall’s chess set. The man easily knocked out his troll and, instead of taking Snape’s potion, drank from a large vial of his own which allowed him to pass through the fiery barriers unharmed.

Harrison cursed himself for a fool. He’d known the obstacles were a set up for Harry and his friends, but he thought Dumbledore’s presence would stop Voldemort from going after the Stone when, clearly, the mirror was the only thing standing in his way.

Quirrell trailed his wand along its frame and the reversed lettering. He went to examine the back, then came around from behind the mirror to stare hungrily into it.

            “I still see the Stone…I’m presenting it to you, master…but _where is it?_ ”

The professor tapped his wand against the fingers of his other hand, irritated. He then spent several minutes casting different spells on the mirror, testing it, before he left. He retraced his steps through each room and conjured a ladder to get up through the trapdoor. Harrison was able to scramble up the ladder too, passing through Quirrell’s body as he went, thinking that incorporeality was awfully useful at moments like these. Otherwise, he’d be stranded in the Devil’s Snare for the remainder of the term.

Quirrell shrunk the harp, moved to the door, summoned the instrument, then quickly stepped outside and shut the door behind him before Fluffy had time to wake up. Harrison started following the professor down the Charms corridor, but stopped. He turned toward the stairs instead.

If he were going to help Harry defeat this man, he would need to be able to explain his knowledge of horcruxes. For that, he needed _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ , and it had occurred to him that he should take advantage of his spectral state by exploring Dumbledore’s study.


	11. Into June

Harrison reached the base of the headmaster’s tower within minutes. He hesitated, then passed through the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance. He started up the spiral staircase. It began moving downward, carrying Professor Vector, when Harrison was halfway to the top. He tried to run up anyway but soon stopped, feeling decidedly silly. He gave the professor a halfhearted glare as the staircase carried them all the way back down to the bottom.

 _If I’m so ghost-like_ , thought Harrison as he started up them again, _why_ _do I have to climb stairs like everybody else?_

Finally, he stood outside the entrance to Dumbledore’s office. He took a deep breath and stepped through the door into a large, circular room that was as strange and beautiful as it had been the first time he’d seen it. McGonagall had brought him here during his second year, after Peeves and Ernie Macmillan accused him of Petrifying other students. He’d been scared witless. That was fifteen years ago, and, at the same time, less than a year from now. Harrison shook his head and looked around.

The curious silver instruments still stood on their spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of colored smoke. The portraits of old headmasters and mistresses still covered the walls, all snoozing gently in their frames. Harrison smiled at the familiar collection of odd noises and odder objects. He noticed the Sorting Hat lying on a shelf behind Dumbledore’s enormous, claw-footed desk.

Harrison had put on the Hat during that first visit in his second year, and he remembered how his stomach had plummeted when the Hat said he really would have done well in Slytherin. He had been so eager to prove it wrong.

The shelves beside the Hat were stuffed full of books. Some were clearly new, while others looked old enough to have fallen apart quite easily if their pages were not bound with magic. There were books no larger than Harrison’s palm, and one so massive that it had been given its own table off to one side.

After several minutes of searching, he realized that the air wavered slightly whenever he looked past a particular spot in the far right hand corner. He moved toward it, then turned abruptly around and was halfway to the office door on a vital mission for Butterbeer before he remembered that bodiless spectres can’t drink. His lips twitched. He thought Dumbledore’s security spells were good, but he, Harrison, was the Master of Death. He would not be fooled by a mere compulsion charm. Not anymore.

Harrison stared hard at the patch of shelf, willing his hands to become solid. The spells shimmered like a heat haze, trying to force his eyes and hands aside. He resisted; _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ was there. He reached forward. Several intensely sexual visions of naked people made him pause, but, finally, his fingers touched the spine. He started to pull it off the shelf.

_Bang!_

The Master of Death squeaked and jumped in shock, whirling around. He froze.

Dumbledore stared at him from the doorway to his private quarters. Or rather, he stared through him, but it took several seconds of cold horror and embarrassment before Harrison remembered that Dumbledore could not see him. The headmaster’s eyes were sharp, hard, and fixed on a spot by Harrison’s eyebrows.

The younger man drew in a ragged, silent breath when Dumbledore’s gaze began to move, searching the bookshelf, and then the rest of the office, for signs of the intruder. Dumbledore must have seen his hands before they vanished, and the headmaster probably would not dismiss the sight as easily as the students in the library.

Harrison could have kicked himself. How could he have been so arrogant? That book told Voldemort how to split his soul; of course Dumbledore protected it with more than just compulsions and visions. He was a fool to think that mastering Death (largely by accident) gave him an edge over someone with more than a hundred years’ experience.

He moved away from Dumbledore as the old man slowly crossed the room to sit at his desk. Harrison noticed, rather belatedly, that the headmaster wore an orange and blue paisley dressing gown over striped pyjamas. Amazing how someone in those clothes could be so intimidating.

* * *

Exam season began. It was sweltering hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. The first years were given special, mustard yellow quills that had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell.

There were practical exams as well. Madam Hooch brought all the first years (except Harry) to the Quiddich pitch, where they maneuvered around an obstacle course of floating sofa cushions. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a bouquet of flowers waltz across a desk. Professor McGonagall had them turn a lizard into a teapot – points were given for how pretty the teapot was, but taken away if had scales or a tail. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks as they tried to remember how much salamander blood went in to the Wiggenweld Potion.

Harry did his best, trying to ignore the weird ache in his scar which bothered him every few days. Seamus Finnigan thought Harry had a bad case of exam nerves because Harry couldn’t sleep, but the truth was that Harry kept having nightmares. Every night he ran, terrified, as a bright red bird and a faceless man in colorful robes pursued him through the castle halls. He always woke up, sweating and shaking, as soon as he reached the forbidden corridor on the third floor. The fourth time Ron and Neville shook Harry out of his nightmares, they dragged him down to the common room and insisted that it had to be more than exam anxiety.

Neville had been hanging around with the Gryffindor trio ever since Ron and Hermione returned from the hospital wing. That night, Harry included Neville in the discussion of what happened at the top of the Astronomy tower. Once Neville knew about Norbert, he asked a few tentative questions about how Hagrid got the dragon in the first place and, in the end, Harry, Ron and Hermione told him everything they had discovered so far in their Great Cerebus Mystery. The idea of a massive three-headed dog in the school horrified Neville, who was very impressed that Harry sung the beast to sleep. The boy’s wide-eyed admiration made Harry shift uncomfortably.

The next morning, Hermione invited Neville to sit with them at breakfast. And so the three became four, walking to class together and studying together in the library. Harry, Ron, and Hermione told Neville about Snape, and the jinxed broom, and Professor Quirrell’s explanation for why Snape treated Harry so horribly. They talked about the Quiddich match Snape refereed, and Neville flushed when Ron retold the story of their fight with Malfoy and his Slytherin goons.

As Harry smiled and praised the other boy he thought about the strange conversation he had with Malfoy over a stack of dirty cauldrons. He almost wished he hadn’t told the blond about his near-Sorting into Slytherin. It had been worth it, though, for the look on Malfoy’s face.

Malfoy continued to taunt the Gryffindors whenever he got the chance, but even he had to prepare for the end of term. Soon Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville were so busy with revision that they had little time to think about Fluffy, the Stone, or the nameless man in the Hog’s Head.

* * *

Harrison spent the weeks until June shadowing the four friends, practicing corporeality, and thinking about his plans for the future.

If he could not give _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ to Hermione and trust her to figure out the details, he might have to copy what Dumbledore had done and tell Harry about the Horcruxes in person. Preferably earlier than sixth year but, like Dumbledore, Harrison could not help but feel that Harry must only be told when the time was “right.”

Was there ever a right time for someone to discover they carried part of their enemy’s soul? Harrison had willingly sacrificed himself once he’d seen Snape’s memories during the battle at Hogwarts. The problem, of course, was that he had not gone back to finish the job. He did not know if his sacrifice had worked, particularly since Nagini, the final Horcrux, had still been alive at the time. He could not let this Harry make the same sacrifice if, in the end, Voldemort’s death was not absolutely guaranteed.

* * *

The first years’ last exam was History of Magic. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry couldn’t help cheering with the rest.

“That was far easier than I thought it would be,” said Hermione, as they joined the crowds flocking out into the sunny grounds. “I needn’t have learnt about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Alfric the Absurd.”

Hermione always liked to go through their exam papers afterwards, but Ron said this made him feel ill, so they wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were teasing the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.

“No more revision,” Ron sighed happily, stretching out on the grass. “You could look more cheerful, Harry, we’ve got a week before we find out how badly we’ve done, there’s no need to worry yet.”

Harry was rubbing his forehead.

“I wish I knew what this _means!_ ” he burst out angrily. “My scar keeps hurting – it’s happened before, but never as often as this.”

“Go to Madam Pomfrey,” Hermione suggested.

“I’m not ill,” said Harry, “I think it’s a warning…”

Neville and Hermione glanced at each other.

“Harry, relax,” said Neville. “Hermione’s right, the Stone’s safe as long as Dumbledore’s around.”

Ron couldn’t get worked up, it was too hot.

“Mmm. The bloke in the pub could’ve been a dangerous animal nut, like Hagrid.”

“What about my dreams?”

“They’re probably just that, dreams.”

Harry nodded, but he couldn’t shake off a lurking feeling that there was something he’d forgotten to do, something important. And he paid attention to his lurking feelings. Harry was tempted to describe the mysterious way he _knew_ things that he shouldn’t, but how could he make his friends understand without telling them about the Dursleys? That was private.

“They’re not just dreams, Ron. I can… remember Hallowe’en, when I knew the Slytherins were in the dungeons?”

“Yeah,” Ron turned to frown at him. “You said you didn’t – ”

“I don’t, not exactly, it just – ”

“What are you talking about?” asked Neville.

“Their common room’s in the dungeons, and when the troll got in I – ”

“Of _course_ it’s in the dungeons, they’re always going there after dinner,” said Hermione.

“That’s what I said.” Harry grinned at her.

“Yeah,” Ron snorted. “So Harry gets this bright idea to go save them, or something, but we ran into Snape, and heard you scream, and –”

“I wasn’t going to _save_ …that’s not the point.”

Harry gave up. Maybe Ron, Hermione and Neville wouldn’t treat him any differently if they found out about his bizarre sixth sense, but…he had only known them for a few months. He couldn’t risk it. This first year at school made Harry suspect that the Dursleys were right, in a way: his flashes of intuition _were_ unnaturally specific. Even for a wizard.

And what did he know about friendship, really? Harry sometimes wondered how he managed to befriend Ron so easily. He’d watched Muggle children with their friends at primary school, but he never had any of his own. Dudley had warned everyone off. Now he, Harry Potter, who had never been close to anyone before age eleven, suddenly had three best friends! 

Fred and George called out, interrupting Harry’s thoughts. The twins and Lee Jordan walked toward them. The lake behind them rippled where the giant squid had slipped away to deeper waters.

“Hello, you lot. Harry, Wood’s having us all meet – ”

“ - on the pitch later – ”

“ - to celebrate the end of term. How about it?”

“Fancy a little year-end Quiddich?”

Neville’s eyes bounced between Fred and George as they finished each other’s sentences.

Harry grinned. “Sounds brilliant.”

“Can we watch?” Ron asked. He propped himself up on his elbows. Hermione glanced up from her exam notes.

“Course you can,” said Lee Jordan. “The more the merrier.”

They left, taking Neville’s hat with them.

“Hey!” Neville struggled to his feet and made to race after them.

“Oi! Give that back.” Hagrid’s voice came from behind them. Harry turned. The gamekeeper was crossing the grounds from the direction of his hut, a dead chicken swinging from one massive fist. Lee tossed the hat back, laughing. Neville sat back down, red faced. Hermione shook her head.

“Hi, Hagrid.” she smiled.

“Hullo,” he said, smiling back. “Finished yer exams?”

“Yup!” said Ron happily. Neville nodded.

“Good, good. Harry, Professor Dumbledore wanted ter see yeh in his office when yeh can.”

The four looked at each other, surprised.

“Er, okay.” Harry stood up and brushed himself off. “See you guys on the pitch, then?”

“Okay,” said Neville.

“Sure. Hagrid,” said Ron, “What’s with the chicken?”

* * *


	12. ***NOTICE***

**Warning**

SIGNIFICANT TIME JUMP AHEAD

The following chapter, "The Bookshop," was actually the first scene to be written and published. Once it got a decent amount of positive feedback, I went back and started at the beginning of Harry and Harrison's story. We are now slowly catching up to "The Bookshop," which is set near the beginning of Harry's second year. 

My apologies to everyone who got a notification for this and thought "new chapter! Hooray!" There will be a proper update soon...promise! I hit a significant plot hole and was forced to rework a few things. 


	13. The Bookshop

August, 1992.

Harrison Black stood on the mezzanine level of Flourish & Blotts. He had leant on the banister to observe the crowd around Gilderoy Lockheart, and watched as Draco Malfoy and his father entered the shop.

“Bet you loved that, didn’t you, Potter?” Draco sneered at Harry. “Famous Harry Potter. Can’t even go into a bookshop without making the front page.”

Harrison snorted. “Malfoy. Jealous little twerp.”

Mr Malfoy heard him. He glanced up, and their eyes met. Harrison sucked in a sharp breath. Mr Malfoy should not have been able to see him.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy’s first thought was that no one but him had the right to make disparaging remarks about his son. He looked up. The man’s outline was blurred for a brief second, but it passed quickly and Lucius dismissed it. The stranger appeared to be about ten years younger than himself and an inch or two shorter, with dark grey eyes and black hair that curled loosely around his ears. He was impeccably dressed in deep green robes that hinted at money and good taste. There was a family signet ring on his left index finger, though Lucius was too far away to make out the design. He was clearly an attractive, unfamiliar pure-blood; this was unusual, since Lucius had believed that he and his wife knew everyone worth knowing in British wizarding society.

The man drew breath and straightened slightly, as if shocked. Why? The comment had been perfectly audible. Lucius drew away from the argument building between his son and the Potter boy. The stranger’s gaze held and intensified as Lucius moved toward the stairs at the side of the shop. A loud smack and a plaintive wail snapped his attention back to Draco.

“My father will hear about this!”

Draco held his cheek in one hand and turned, furious, toward his father. The little Weasley girl had slapped him. Her family, Potter, the Granger mudblood, and a pair of nervous Muggles stood behind her, looking shocked or impressed by turn. He put his hand on Draco’s shoulder, unaware that he and his son were now sneering in just the same way.

“Well, well, well – Arthur Weasley.”

“Lucius,” said Mr Weasley, nodding coldly. “I…apologize for my daughter, she…acted out of turn.”

“Hmm, yes. Busy time at the Ministry, I hear. I suppose you haven’t had time to teach your children manners, what with all those raids…I hope they’re paying you overtime?” He reached into Ginny’s cauldron and extracted, from amidst the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of _A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration._

“Obviously not,” he said. “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”

Mr Weasley flushed.

“We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy,” he said.

“Clearly,” said Mr Malfoy, his pale eyes straying to Mr and Mrs Granger, who were watching apprehensively. “The company you keep, Weasley…and I thought your family could sink no lower –”

There was a thud of metal as the Weasley girl’s cauldron hit the floor. Mr Weasley launched himself at Mr Malfoy, who stepped aside just in time. Mr Weasley tripped and went sprawling. Mrs Weasley and her youngest son both cried out and bustled forward to help him up.

“Really, Weasley,” Mr Malfoy said, raising his eyebrows. “Here, girl – take your book – it’s the best your father can give you –”

* * *

Harrison watched with interest as Mr Malfoy slipped the diary into Ginny’s cauldron along with her textbook. The blond aristocrat stepped around Mrs Weasley, who was brushing off her embarrassed husband, and swept from the shop with Draco trailing behind him. Mr Malfoy looked up, smirking slightly, and made eye contact again just as they reached the door.

Harrison was puzzled. There hadn’t been a fight this time, and Mr Malfoy had definitely seen him. Was there a connection? How could there be? He stood and walked down the stairs. As he did so, a wizard with his nose in a book absentmindedly moved aside to let him pass. His body was definitely solid and visible, then, after eleven years of moving through everyone like one of the Hogwarts ghosts. He had stepped through Hermione to enter the bookshop not five minutes earlier, and she hadn’t felt a thing. Why on earth was Malfoy the first person to notice him? He thought he had felt something settle the moment they laid eyes on each other. Surely Malfoy’s glance had not actually _made_ him corporeal, not after all the time and effort he had spent designing this form and focusing his magic onto its shape.

He followed Malfoy outside and caught his own reflection in a shop window for what felt like the first time. To his astonishment, the face he saw was not quite what he had imagined. The nose was stronger, the cheekbones slightly higher. He rubbed his chin and discovered a light coat of stubble.

The door to Flourish & Blotts opened again and the Weasley company hurried out. Mrs Granger did small double take when she caught sight of Harrison.

“Good lord, Wendell, look – it’s Rufus Sewell off the telly.”

Harrison looked around, utterly nonplussed. “I...what?”

His voice was deeper than expected, too.

Mrs Granger went a bit pink. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. For a moment, I thought…never mind. Couldn’t possibly be…not _here_ , in any case!” Hermione and Mr Granger had come over, but Mrs Granger turned them back around and ushered them toward Harry and the Weasleys, who were walking back toward the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione looked back over her shoulder, frowning, but allowed her mother to steer her away.

“Mistaken for a Muggle? Dear me,” Mr Malfoy stood outside the entrance to Quality Quiddich Supplies, fingering the head of his cane. Harrison smiled politely, thinking fast.

“Good afternoon, Mr…Malfoy?” The blond inclined his head. “It was rather a shock.”

“Indeed. You seemed no less surprised to see me a moment ago, Mr - ?”

Harrison’s smile widened. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Now Mr Malfoy began to smile. It was very different from the smirk he’d directed at Harrison as he left the bookshop. “Try me,” he said, voice silky.

The younger man’s pulse sped up and his thoughts raced to find an answer. Mr Malfoy’s eyes traveled down his body, then widened as they fell on Harrison’s ring which, the blond could now clearly see, bore the Black family crest. The small smile vanished and a crease appeared between his brows.

“Lord _Black?_ That’s not possible – I have it on good authority that the current head of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black is in Azkaban.”

He made a noncommittal noise in his throat.

“On good authority – Narcissa’s, perhaps?”

Mr Malfoy narrowed his eyes at Harrison, who wore a too-innocent expression. “Yes,” he said, drawing the word out.

“Give her my love, won’t you.”

Mr Malfoy was about to reply when Draco opened the shop door. “Father, I’ve found it. The Nimbus Two Thousand and One. Now I _will_ beat Potter! You really must find a way to get me on the team, I – ” Now thoroughly distracted, Mr Malfoy glanced back at Harrison in time to see him wink, rather cockily, and stride past them with his hands in his robe pockets.

* * *

 _It couldn’t possibly be Regulus, could it?_ Lucius thought as he dealt with his son. _He wasn’t old enough. What other Black men were there?_ He must remember to take it up with Narcissa. She would know.

There was something almost…magnetic about the man which put Lucius on edge. He was loath to admit it, but the Malfoys had a drop, just a _drop_ , of Veela in their otherwise spotless heritage. Draco, he remembered, would have to be told about it once he came of age. Their Veela inheritance usually manifested itself in the unusual dominance of their slivery blond hair and pale eyes. Every few generations, however, it blossomed into a mate bond. Lucius could recall one Malfoy who had successfully hidden his bonded, half-blood mistress from everyone but his wife until many years after their death, when someone found her journal hidden in the manor library. A couple luckier Malfoys had bonded with pure-blood men or women to whom they could get legally married, and only the immediate family was aware of the true nature of their relationship.

Lucius did not seriously think he would bond with the unknown Black, but he knew the possibility existed. _At least,_ he consoled himself, _the man is a pure-blood._

* * *

 _That was interesting,_ Harrison thought as he turned into Knockturn Alley. He paused to let his heart rate return to normal. He then found an alcove out of the way, caught a fleeing rat, and snapped its neck.

SQUEAK.*

Harrison raised an eyebrow. “If you find one, I’m all ears.”

The little robed skeleton jerked its skull, as though to sniff disdainfully, and disappeared. Harrison waited. Death slowly materialized behind him and got his attention by tapping his shoulder with the scythe handle.

“Hello, my friend. What happened when Malfoy looked at me?”

No response.

Harrison pursed his lips and thumbed the thick silver band on his finger.

“What’s this, then?”

A RING.

That was encouraging.

“Malfoy recognized it.”

YES.

“Please, Death. What’s going on?”

Cold breath rattled out from under the hood, making Harrison shiver and think of Dementors. THE SURNAME WAS YOUR CHOICE, MASTER. I ACCOUNTED FOR YOUR EXISTENCE SHOULD YOU MANAGE TO ACQUIRE A BODY. YOU MANAGED. HARRISON IS THE SON OF REGULUS BLACK AND CATHERINE ROSIER. ORION BLACK HAD TO ACKNOWLEDGE EITHER YOU OR SIRIUS AS HIS HEIR, LEST THE MALE LINE DIE WITH HIM.

Harrison nodded. He could work with this.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"You really must find a less wasteful means of communication."


	14. Narcissa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look at that, hannibalsdesign! I had a brainwave.

Lucius found his wife in one of the less formal sitting rooms. It featured a piano, a number of bookshelves, and two large bay windows overlooking the manor gardens. Narcissa Malfoy née Black sat in an old, ornate armchair with her ankles crossed, reading. A tea cup and saucer made of fine bone china sat on a small table to her right, its contents steaming and smelling slightly of peppermint. She did not look up when he came in.

He walked toward her, taking off his gloves and stepping around another small table as he spoke. 

"Lord Black sends his love."

Now she looked at him. He sat down facing her on one of the matching sofas and leant his cane against the armrest.

"Lord...Black," she said, her voice doubtful.

"Sends his love, yes." Narcissa closed her book and laid it on the table beside her tea. She raised an eyebrow at her husband when he did not immediately explain himself.

Lucius' smile did not reach his eyes. "I met the most...interesting fellow today, in Diagon Alley. He wore the lordship ring." Narcissa blinked in surprise. "And I never managed to get his name, more's the pity. I mentioned the Gryffindor, but he chose not to favor me with an explanation."

There was only one Gryffindor in the Black family.

Narcissa sat back in the armchair with her hands in her lap. "Did he look like a Black?"

"I suppose so. The hair and eyes were certainly right, though the rest of him remains to be seen." He smirked.

* * *

Narcissa felt she would have rolled her eyes if she had been a less well-bred witch. As it was, she settled for looking distinctly unimpressed with her husband's innuendo. So long as nothing happened to embarrass her or to endanger Draco's inheritance, Lucius could do whatever (whomever) he liked.

She certainly did.

Lucius had always reminded her of a cat. A large one; sleek and dangerous and ever so good at keeping his paws clean by letting others do the dirty work. She smiled, thinking how affronted he would be if she ever made the comparison out loud.  _I'd have to reassure him that his animagus would be nothing like McGonagall's._

She frowned as her thoughts returned to the matter at hand. "It couldn't possibly have been Regulus, could it? He hasn't been seen since -" _since the Dark Lord fell -_ "Well, he's been missing for years." _  
_

"My thoughts exactly." They fell silent. Narcissa sipped her tea.

"Dobby!" She called. The elf appeared in the space between their chairs with a loud _crack_ , wringing his hands.

"Dobby is here, missus Malfoy."

"Fetch the most recent volume of the Black family genealogy. Now."

"Yes, missus Malfoy." He popped back in under a minute carrying a dark leather-bound book nearly as big as himself. The front cover bore the same design as the stranger's ring: a shield divided by a black inverted chevron. The top field was red with black stars and a sword held in an armoured fist, the bottom field white with three black crows. A scroll along the bottom held the Black family motto,  _Toujours pur._

Dobby held the book out to Narcissa. She drew her wand. Dobby flinched. Ignoring the elf, she levitated the book she had been reading onto the piano so that the genealogy could take its place on the side table.

"Have dinner ready for six."

"Yes, missus Malfoy." Dobby left with another loud  _crack._

Narcissa opened the genealogy near the end and leafed through a few pages. Her eyebrows furrowed as she scanned it, then shot toward her hairline as she reached the bottom of the page.

"Look, dear." She tapped a spot with her wand, then floated the book to her husband's lap.

* * *

A small, glowing dot of Narcissa's magic (a pale, icy blue) drew Lucius' attention to the name  _Harrison Black,_ then vanished. The magical genealogy itself had underlined the name to mark him as the current head of house.

"Regulus's son. With.. _Catherine Rosier?_   Who...ah. Evan never mentioned a sister, but that isn't much of a surprise."

"I want to know why he hasn't made himself known until now. The birth date puts him at," Narcissa levitated the book back to her side table and did some rapid mental arithmetic, "twenty eight. Today."

"Hmm." He stood up. "I'll owl him our wish for many happy returns. Like to add anything to the post-script?"

She gave him a look which said,  _Going fishing, dear?_ _  
_

His lips twitched as he lifted his cane to her and left the room.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Over time, _Black and Potter_ could easily become an epic retelling of the first four Harry Potter books, with cameo appearances by Discworld characters. 
> 
> Shall I keep going? Comments and reviews are the very best form of encouragement!


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